Ups and Downs
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What are the highlights of the Blue Jays' upcoming series against the Rays?
It's at the Letters for Monday, May 4th, 2026. Arden Zwelling here with our producer, Christian Ryan. Thanks so much for listening.
No Ben Nicholson-Smith for this episode. He is in Florida preparing to cover the Blue Jays' upcoming three-game series against the Rays, which you can obviously catch on Sportsnet this week. And you can obviously...
What did Arden observe from the Blue Jays during their series in Minneapolis?
read everything that ben has to produce off of that at sports.ca and watch his hits with hazel and all that good stuff um i am fresh back from minneapolis where i watched the blue jays split a four game series with uh the minnesota twins uh i walked in my front door like i don't know 1.30, close to 2, and it's now 8.30. So the series is very fresh in my mind. It will never be fresher. So I'm going to hop on the old podcast here just to debrief and talk about what happened, because a lot happened. And we got to get to it before even more things happen against the Rays this week. Because look, The Rays are playing well. This is going to be a test for the Blue Jays. It's only their second in-division series so far, which is kind of crazy that we've made it this far to the first week of May, and they're only just now playing their second series against an in-division team.
How is Kazuma Okamoto performing in his rookie season?
He'd probably rather be facing the Red Sox or Orioles right now. If you're the Blue Jays, you don't want to be facing the Yankees at any point, really, because they've been playing as well as they have. But the Rays, they've been playing pretty well, too. 21-12 through their 33 games. That's tied for the Rays' fourth best record ever through 33 games. So think about how many... 90 plus win versions of the Rays we've seen over the years. This is like their fourth best start in franchise history. They've won nine of the last 10 with a plus 24 run differential. Over that span, their starters ERA is 115 and their bullpen ERA is 129. Over these last 10 games, as a pitching staff, the Rays have a whip of .91.
So they are allowing less than a walk and hit per innings pitched. Blue Jays offense. Got to come through. Got to get the bats going here against the Rays at the Trop. We saw it at times against the Twins in the middle games of the series, but we didn't see it in the bread games of the sandwich that was the Twins series. So the Blue Jays just got to get their bats going a little bit here against the Rays. And they also are going to have to clean things up defensively and play a sound game. against this Rays offense because they make a ton of contact, the highest contact rate in baseball. They run all the time. They have the second most steals in MLB and by far the most attempts. So they just put a ton of pressure on defenses.
And this will be a test of whether the Blue Jays can play a clean brand of baseball, which has not always been the case through the first 34 games in this Blue Jays season. It's somewhat quiet defensively, But the Jays are on pace for over 100 errors this year. They had 86 last season, 92 in 2024, only 71 in 23, 82 in 2022, and 90 in 2021. So this would be the first time in over five years that the Blue Jays have over 100 errors in a season. And yes, we all understand that raw error totals is probably like the worst way to evaluate a defense.
What developments have been noted in Dylan Cease's pitching strategy?
And it's too early in the season for me to really put too much stock into like outs above average or fielding run value or defensive run saved and things like this. I'm going to... Give that a bit more time to stabilize. But I think like just the subjective eye test would tell you the Blue Jays have not played their best defensively this year. They certainly haven't played up to like the standard that we've seen from this team defensively in recent seasons. And you consider the fact that you've regularly got Jesus Sanchez starting in the outfield and he's a below average defender. You've had Joendrik Pignango in the outfield a bunch the last few games, but not a fantastic defender behind the plate.
You're without Alejandro Kirk. who's one of the best defensive catchers in baseball.
What happened between John Schneider and Tyler Heineman during the game?
And Tyler Heineman and Brandon Valenzuela are both sound defensive catchers, but they're not like Kirk-level defensive catchers.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the highlights of the Blue Jays' upcoming series against the Rays?
0:06–0:33
2
What did Arden observe from the Blue Jays during their series in Minneapolis?
0:33–1:38
3
How is Kazuma Okamoto performing in his rookie season?
1:38–4:05
4
What developments have been noted in Dylan Cease's pitching strategy?
4:05–4:53
5
What happened between John Schneider and Tyler Heineman during the game?
4:53–17:59
6
How do the Blue Jays need to adjust their defense against the Rays?
17:59–38:52
7
What are the implications of Jose Berrios' recent rehab outing?
38:52–40:17
8
What strategies should the Blue Jays adopt to improve their performance?
40:17–1:09:46