The Alamo
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's at the letters for Monday, July 27th, 2026. Arden's Welling with Ben Nicholson-Smith and our producer, Christian Ryan. Thanks so much for listening. Ben, last we spoke, it was Wednesday. wednesday july the 22nd uh it was prior to the final two games of the blue jays four game home set against the tampa bay rays and we were sizing up the rest of that series and then the upcoming road trip with three in boston and three in washington and we were looking at those eight games and we were saying the only way the blue jays are going to avoid being sellers. The only way to create enough realistic hope for them to go into the deadline like, yeah, maybe we augment this group and supplement and take a run at this thing, would be to go 7-1 or 6-2 over this eight-game stretch.
That would likely include at least two of three against Boston, preferably Boston. sweep and we are now five games into that eight game run and the Blue Jays have gone two and three and they won only once in Boston so unless you are going to throw me the curveball of all curveballs I suspect that your opinion on what the Blue Jays should do heading into the trade deadline remains unchanged
Yeah, it remains unchanged. That is an accurate read. Look, it sucks, and it's not an easy time for Jays fans. There's a lot of disappointment with the way this team has performed, but I don't know that there's another way to look at this information. I don't know that there's another conclusion to reach, and... You know, I think that after missing those chances in Boston over the weekend, you know, really just one run on the Sunday game. Of course, the one hitter from Dylan Cease was awesome, super impressive, but they couldn't get it done in the Friday game. It's just the story of their season, right? They're not scoring enough. They're not coming up with the big swing in the big moment. They've had some issues bullpen-wise as well.
So to me, yeah, they have to be sellers. They just have to be. And I do think that that realization has reached the fan base. Not that everyone has to have the same opinion on it, but when I was lining up for the flight back to Toronto last night, a fan came up, hey, love the podcast, awesome. Great to hear that from all our listeners. And this person goes, hey, I've got an idea for your next ATL headline. At the letters, colon, it's over. And I don't think we're going to call it that. But I think that there's certainly a level of resignation that's set in at the point that the Blue Jays are 10 games below .500.
Yeah, even if they go 6-0 the rest of the way between now and the trade deadline, they would still be four games under .500 going into the trade deadline, which is decidedly not where you want to be, even in a weakened American league. Yeah. that's one of the things that I'm really struck with, um, right now is just what a blown opportunity this is because the American league is so weak. And if the blue Jays were 500 right now, we'd be talking about them as definite buyers. And to say that, you know, beginning the season, if we had said, Hey, through 106 games, the blue Jays are going to be 500. It would have said, well, that's a bit of a disappointment. Like that's a bit of under performance, but fine enough.
Um, And here we are, 106 games in, and they're 10 games under .500. And if we had suggested this going into the season, it probably would have been like, okay, what massive injury did Vladimir Guerrero Jr. suffer? And just how much of an epic drop-off did George Springer's numbers have? And how many weeks did Dylan Cease or Kevin Gosman miss with some sort of a shoulder issue? I don't think I would have said like, oh, the way they get there is by having the worst offense in baseball and scoring fewer than four runs per game.
Yeah, no, that's for sure. That's been one of the really shocking things about this season. And look, I mean, that is connected to injuries where clearly... Alejandro Kirk missed a bunch of time. For example, Addison Barger. We learned on Friday that his season is over.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:06–5:22
2
How did the Blue Jays’ series in Boston change their trade-deadline outlook?
5:22–29:29
3
What clubhouse atmosphere did Ben observe in Boston after the World Series hangover?
29:29–45:41
4
Why has Toronto’s offense collapsed compared with last season’s expected metrics?
45:41–58:18