Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
All right, welcome to Blair and Barker brought to you by Capital One. Capital One giving credit to over 4 million Canadians and counting. It is once again just myself. Mr. Barker is in the middle of, he's probably lifting boxes right about now or putting furniture together. Or actually, knowing Kevin, he's probably getting Hazel to do it.
But anyhow, he'll be back on Monday as we will break down a weekend of baseball between the Blue Jays and the Baltimore Orioles. Second game of that four-game series set to go tonight at 7.05. We have the Jays lineup in. And there it is. Springer, Clement, Guerrero, Okamoto, Varshow, Charles McAdoo making his MLB debut at second base. Miles Straw. Hendrick Penango and Brandon Valenzuela.
Adam Macko on the mound getting the start as the opener for the Blue Jays. Let's not waste any time. Let's bring in the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, John Schneider. There he is. How you doing, man?
What's up, Jeff?
I'm lonely here, man, you know?
Yeah, no bark.
No barker. I mean, I've got to figure out how the hell I'm going to do this, and I'm sure we'll make it work. Let's get the, before we get into the lineup, let's get the requisite health questions out of the way. I'm sure, God, I'm sure you're looking forward to not having to answer this at some point. Any updates on, I would say, I would start with Bieber, Kirk, Barger.
That would probably be right.
We're getting closer. We're getting some more positive news. Biebs is pitching Sunday in Dunedin. Hopefully, you know, at least three ups and around 50-ish pitches. Kirky is going to continue to hit. He's been, I think, today's on-field VP for the first time and kind of continue to progress over the weekend with that. And I think if all goes well,
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Chapter 2: What are John Schneider's expectations for Charles McAdoo's MLB debut?
But honestly, from a distance, sometimes it doesn't seem like it's 14 and 12. You know what I mean? I'm sure you know what I mean that respectfully. For sure. But how important would it be to get to that 500 mark and maybe even get over it?
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, you kind of target that wherever we ended up at the end of April, you know, you kind of target, okay, let's make some progress, you know, here and, and really try to take some steps forward. So with that and with some guys, you know, hopefully getting closer to coming back to the team. Yeah.
That's kind of a, that's the hope, you know, I think when then you narrow it down into trying to win every series and then you narrow it down into winning pitches and you try to just stack that up and stack that up. So, It would be yeah, it would be nice. You know, it's a it's a big four game set here against the team in our division.
So you get off to a good start last night and then you got to kind of keep it rolling. But when you when you look at the season overall, you want to look up at each month and continue to make some some gradual, if not big improvements in terms of win loss. And I feel like we did that last year. It's a pretty good recipe to kind of follow.
Now you're going to get Adam Mack opening tonight. And I know you've been forced by injuries to cycle through a lot of different guys, obviously. And I know you endeavor to keep guys on schedule and sort of in a regular turn as much as possible.
But I'm just wondering, even with that, is there still an element of disruption that you have to guard against, that you, Pete, staff have to guard against?
Yeah, a little bit. You know, I think just, you know, when you're kind of operating, you know, I don't want to say two bullpen games, we're kind of pretty well versed with Spencer and how we're deploying him. You know, you're just being very aware of the guys you're using in the bullpen and how much you're using them. And when can you push a starter? When can you, you know, be aggressive?
I don't want to say it's disruptive. I think it's an opportunity to, you know, really try to be creative and give guys opportunities to have success, but it's, It's definitely different, you know what I mean? And again, I think that we are pretty well versed in solving those problems or those equations, you know?
And I think that the guys have been through it enough to where they get it and they trust the plan that we're putting in place for them. So more so view it as an opportunity than it is disruption.
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Chapter 3: How important is it for the Blue Jays to finish May with a .500 record?
But again, I'm sure a lot of that will depend on how these next couple of games go. And in particular, how game three goes. I mean, we know that one of the reasons the Jays waited until this morning was to at least publicly indicate who was going to start the game was they wanted to get through Friday's first game, see the state of the bullpen.
uh before moving on the jays did beat the orioles 2-1 last night they are one game under 500 the last time they were at 500 was april 4th uh they lost that night to the chicago white socks and it's been a long time it's been a long climb back to this point for the blue jays they are 14 and 12 this month and yeah i would think that uh
for Blue Jays players, certainly for Blue Jays fans, getting back to that 500 mark, kind of almost reestablishing or resetting yourself after the month of May would probably be, certainly be something that this team could hang its hat on.
And, you know, it's, again, we've talked about this, the American League is kind of, it's, well, let's just say it's a good year to have the type of start the Blue Jays had. But I do think I was correct in asking John. It doesn't seem, maybe I'm wrong, it doesn't seem like they had a 14 and 12 May, right?
It just seems as if we've kind of bounced from, I wouldn't say crisis to crisis, but we've bounced from issue to issue, might be a better way to put it. Some long-running issues obviously created by health, you know, essentially Barger and Kirk, two guys you counted on to be regulars, not being here. George Springer being compromised for a while. Vladdy getting off to slower than usual start.
All of that, all of that, all of that good stuff. contributing to this good news though in the injury front from John Schneider just to update it Alejandro Kirk believed to be taking batting practice on the field today I think that might be the first time I could be wrong but there really does it now appears as if he will be getting into games at the minor league level at the end of next week
which is good. Shane Bieber continuing to pitch in games. That is good as well. I mean, clearly his recovery between starts is going well. That's a massive, you know, it'll be a massive boost to this team, regardless of of what Shane Bieber gives you.
If he can come in here and at least give you five to six innings and allow you to sort of have a normal start instead of two bullpen days, that in and of itself would be good in Max Scherzer's pitching. So slowly but surely, the Blue Jays are getting their people back in place. And not too soon, I would suggest. Here's what we're going to do today. We are going to go to the back leg line later.
416-413-3959. I asked a very simple question. The month of May will... Duato will close this weekend. I just want to know who your MVP has been so far for the Blue Jays. Who's been your surprise? Who's been your disappointment? What do you like? What haven't you liked? 416-413-3959, name and location, please. Mike Bordick, former infielder with the Orioles, the Jays, the A's, and the Mets.
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Chapter 4: What challenges has John Schneider faced with injuries in the rotation?
And a little less spin rate. And... Interesting, doing some reading on it. It was after a start on May 17th that the Orioles pitching staff, and that's three coaches, Drew French, Mitch Plassmeyer, and Ryan Klimek, approached him about... Well, we'll ask Mike about that. Mike, thanks... Thanks so much for your patience, and thanks for joining us.
I was talking about Brandon Young and this modification to the grip he's using with the splitter and the success it seemed to have given him. How odd is it for a pitcher to make this type of a change this early in the season, and just how effective could it be for him, do you think?
Well, I think a guy like Brandon Young is just trying to find a way to break into the big leagues. He's had a couple opportunities, but never really been able to stick. And I think this is the best run he's been able to get on. And yeah, I think his split finger's definitely been playing up, but it's this high fastball that's really kind of been exceptional for him.
He's getting guys to chase up and out of the zone. It's not like he's become this team's ace, I don't think, but he's definitely helped stabilize the rotation. It was just a mess. We had some big injuries earlier in the year. Fortunately, I'd say over the last three or four turns through the rotation, Radish has definitely started to settle in. Boz has had a couple of really good starts.
Saw what Bassett did last night, so that's encouraging. And then to have Young do what he's doing, I think, it just really helps because every organization, I think, is hamstrung by the depth they have of starting pitchers, and the Orioles are no different. So you're kind of hoping and praying that some of these guys ā you know, stick and something clicks at the major league level.
Mike, what's the reason been for this kind of this sluggish start on the part of the Orioles? Because I think a lot of us thought that, you know, they were, I mean, we thought for years, you know, for three or four years with this young core, that it was only a matter of time before they kind of,
put their imprint on the division and maybe, you know, at least put themselves in a position to, to put together back to back really dominating seasons. What, what's happened? Why have they just kind of stuttered a little bit here?
Well, you know, I think, um, I think last year really kind of set them back. They just got destroyed with injuries. They may have set some ungodly record, like over 70 spins on the IL, just decimated up and down pitchers, position players. And, you know, I think, I mean, that's part of the excuse. I'll say that. But in doing so, they ended up firing Brandon Hyde.
Manzolino came in and was the interim manager, you know, for last year. And then all of a sudden they get rid of everybody. They trade everybody away at the deadline. They say it's not a rebuild. It's more of kind of a reset. But there were only like six original guys left over from that team from last year. So they had to completely rebuild, restructure the whole organization and
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