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Chapter 1: What were the highlights of the Blue Jays' sweep over the Red Sox?
A sweep. How about that? It's been a little bit since the Toronto Blue Jays swept the series. Of course, it had been a little bit before the Boston Red Sox won a series at Fenway, and they did that before this one. So, you know, trends got a break at some point. But the Jays get it done. It was kind of a day for don't ask how, ask how many, or don't ask how, yeah, don't ask how, ask how many.
They won 4-3. That was good. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. homered. That was good. Did they blow a lead and then have to carve one out thanks in part to some shaky Sox defense in the ninth? Yeah, sure. Was Vlad's home run swing probably like one of the 10 worst swings he's ever put on a home run? Yeah, sure.
But when you are trying to play catch-up, when you've had a start of the season defined largely by injury and underperformance, you're not really looking a gift horse in the mouth, as it were. You will take the 4-3 victory. You will take length from... A freshly goateed Trey. You savage. You will take a Vlad home run and you will certainly take a Brandon balance.
Will a foul ball dropping in between a couple of fielders, allowing him to extend a nine pitch at bat against a role, this Chapman and hit a go ahead, go ahead. RBI double on a day, by the way, where you had almost no bullpen options. Mason flew already. I got the save with a thin pen, lots of good stuff there. And it came on a day where I was pretty fun.
Pretty fun sports today around the city, around the country. Canada obviously winning on the soccer side. The Toronto Marlies won William Villeneuve play in overtime from potentially sweeping the Calder Cup championship to...
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Chapter 2: How does Rob Thomson reflect on the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame weekend?
the degree that you guys care about that huge week of Leafs news every day something has come down either right before this show or during this show so good for you if you're a news hungry Leaf fan this is a Blue Jays show though later in the show we will talk to Jesse Rogers about the Chicago Cubs the Blue Jays are at Wrigley today tomorrow and Sunday all 2 20 p.m. start times by the way
for a three-set against the Cubs team that's been pretty up and down this year. We'll talk to Rob Thompson a little later. It's Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame weekend, and Rob Thompson, who was recently the manager of the Phillies, took 10 minutes out this morning before the Canada Baseball Hall of Fame golf game to chat with us. We'll have Chris LaRue in studio as well.
But Chris LaRue's partner on the Sportsnet Radio Network joins us first. It's Ben Schulman. Ben, how we doing, buddy?
I'm doing great. And I have to say, for those of us who hold tickets to game five of the Calder Cup, that game did matter a lot last night and maybe secretly had the fingers, you know, twisted up behind my back, hoping that Chicago might get one so my tickets don't go to waste. So I'm pretty fired up about that.
Wow. It's all about you. The selfishness here is unbelievable. So is that game tonight?
Tonight at seven.
Okay. Oh, so my calendar. Perfect.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Jesse Rogers provide about the Chicago Cubs?
I got to one last series, but, you know, the tickets flow to the Shulmans of the world before they flow to the Murphys of the world. Look, fun day of sports. I know you were locked in on Canada soccer. Let's just do that very, very briefly. As a Canadian sports fan, how much fun did you have with that yesterday, the first win in the World Cup in Canadian men's soccer history?
Super fun. I was at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto. Tons of people there. You know, lots of fans, even some fans that weren't Canadian fans, but just came to cheer on Canada because they were in the city visiting whatever other team they might be going after or supporting. So awesome. Really cool for the country.
You know, I think a lot of us who followed them remember some of their lowest moments. Remember, you know, 8-1 to Honduras and all that stuff and to think about how far it's come. in, in really a short span is, is pretty cool. So now they just got to go mess around and win the whole damn thing. That'll be fun.
Yeah, that would be, I mean, at least the group, if you, if you draw with Switzerland on Wednesday, then you're, then you're in good shape there. So yeah, a lot of, a lot of potential fun ahead as well. It was fun for the blue Jays yesterday. And like with your Marley's today, the schedule lined up nicely to double dip those a one 35 startup.
Fenway saw the Jays win four to three and come up with a sweep. Um, Look, obviously you get credit for beating whoever's in front of you. It's not easy to sweep anyone. Did you kind of come away from that series shaking your head at the quality of ball the Red Sox are playing right now, though?
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Chapter 4: How is Trey Yesavage rebounding from his recent struggles?
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to be disrespectful, but truthfully, they were a little... I think it's because Wilson Contreras didn't hit, and he's been so awesome. They were a little less competitive than I was expecting. And I know they've been bad at home, and I know they're having a tough year. But that still, to me, is a team with some talent on it.
But for whatever reason, it is really not working out. Now, again, full credit to the Blue Jays. I did think they pitched well for the most part. I know some people made mistakes. some of the innings that Simeon Woods Richardson threw. And I know that there were some ups and downs for Trey Savage yesterday.
But I do think on the whole, when you hold the team to four runs in three games and the only day they really score runs is the day you were pushing a starter way further than you would have if you had more bullpen available. I think that's a pretty big win for the pitching. Do I think all of the offense is solved by them sweeping this series where they didn't have to score a ton of runs to score?
Probably not. And, you know, you had mentioned a critique earlier potentially of Vlad even on the home run.
Chapter 5: What does Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s recent performance indicate?
But I do think that there's some big things they take from it. I do like the way George Springer was swinging. Obviously, David Schneider and Andres Jimenez had really nice series as well. So, you know what? They didn't do this early in the season, and it really hurt them. So at this point, however you sweep a team, it's a really good thing.
and for the blue jays they're facing another team coming up that's that's maybe not firing in all cylinders so no matter how you can pick up wins if you can get them that's big yes and if it means the opponent has to the red sox have existed for what 750 years uh that was the worst series they've ever had with runners in scoring position so um that is uh if that's what it takes to get a sweeping start climbing back in the wind column we'll call that kind of
balancing out for all the injury and uh you know puck luck the the jays have had so far here so you mentioned a lot of positives in there they got some really good pitching in the series treya savage yesterday was awesome and very efficient until the eighth inning he gives up back-to-back home runs there the jay's got to kind of rush to get someone up and ready um Pretty straightforward to you.
I saw some criticism on Twitter, but I think this is a case of like, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Trey Savage was rolling. He was at 85 pitches. Your bullpen was woefully thin. You okay, given how good he looked, letting Savage back out there for the eighth, the third time through against a back part of the order? 100%.
I was actually aggressively in favor of that move. And I know it didn't end up working out 100%. But to me, it's different when you're weighing Trey Savage going out third time through versus the typical high leverage righties. And this is with all due respect to Tommy Dance, but that's just not the role.
you know, up by a couple of runs in the eighth inning that they're typically asking out of him. I think when you have Trey Savage, he's allowed two hits so far in the game. The action on his pitches is really good. The odds that Isaiah kind of full of fun and Caleb Durbin hit back to back home runs.
are so low and i know it happened but uh you know i i do really think monday morning quarterbacking online not from from uh you know all sources but online on bullpen moves gets a little ridiculous like half the internet is waiting to say it was too late half the internet is waiting to say it's too early it's to me completely not representative of how people should feel about these moves as i get fired up enough to kick my desk in front of me but
I think that at the end of the day, I liked going to Trey Savage there. The action on his pitches was really good yesterday. If you have a full bullpen, I would have loved to have taken him out after seven just so he probably would have felt a little better about that outing. But you didn't. And the best way to win that game, I think, was to throw Trey Savage out there.
And he ended up getting a little wind help in the top of the ninth against the oldest Chapman and win it anyway. No harm, no foul to me, and I still think Yusavage probably walks away feeling good about it. And for the Blue Jays, you said it earlier, it's not really about how right now, it's just about how many. So even if that was the wrong move, whatever.
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Chapter 6: How does the Cubs' pitching strategy impact their performance?
Obviously, the third time through the order penalty is a real thing statistically, but you're trying to weigh there Trey Yusavage's 86th pitch versus, not just versus Tommy Nance's first pitch, but if it goes shaky for, say, Tommy Nance, Chad Dallas is the only other guy, right? Like, you're talking about a guy who's made one major league appearance and is fresh up from AAA.
Maybe you could have gone to Fisher or Miles, having thrown 20-plus pitches the day before, but Fisher's been redlining for weeks here, and Miles, I don't even think he's gone back-to-back yet. So... you know, you get to Chad Dallas quickly. So I understand that one.
Obviously a big benefit going into this Cub series that they were able to get through that game only using their two of their bullpen arms, you know, not entirely fresh here because Varlin Rogers and Hoffman all pitched Tuesday, Wednesday. So presumably if they all pitched today, they would be yellow on Saturday and so forth. When you look at,
The fact that they're in 16-16, all the things we've been talking about, they could kind of use a blowout or like a day where they could use Chad Dallas for bulk. Obviously, you can't just go out and do that. All of that is to say, where do you see the Chad Dallas role right now? Is it kind of just if we have a multi-inning, eat some innings thing?
Or is this a guy that we could see in a sixth inning of a close game at some point?
I think there is the possibility of a starter goes short, but the game is close. Maybe they're down one or two, and you use him in a one-plus or a two-inning role, you know, cover the fifth and sixth or finish off the fifth and do the whole sixth. But I do think for the most part, at least until Simeon Woods Richardson is available again, you want to keep the length of Dallas.
Just with the strain on the team, the lack of five starters, the 16 and 16, like you mentioned, they – You know, they're another blow up day without a Chad Dallas pitching long from just having to make two or three bullpen moves that might expose guys to waivers.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does Ben Brown face as a starting pitcher?
So I think you have to keep Dallas a little bit in waiting if possible. But if you can get through, maybe it's today or maybe it's today and tomorrow. Then I think you might have Simeon Woods Richardson back in the mix to cover multiple innings for you. Then you can think about, you know, do you want to use Chad Dallas in some different spots?
Maybe there's a pocket of righties where his breaking balls would play well against it. Or do you start to look at some other guys that maybe aren't as much length guys, but guys you can bring up from your system? Or is Jimmy Garcia ready? I know he had a bit of an up and down. last three outings, including the one last night, but is he ready? And is he potentially coming back to rejoin your pen?
So I do think there's, it's kind of all across the board for Chad Dallas. I kind of think whatever, whatever they do, you know, they'll say jump, he'll say how high and they'll figure out what they're going to do.
I think, yeah, the, I mean, not, yes, the ideal scenario is, I guess, always you win in a blowout, but it's, you win in a blowout tonight, use Chad Dallas, and then he's the option when Jimmy Garcia is ready. So for anyone who missed it, Jimmy Garcia did get into his seventh rehab appearance.
yesterday but the velocity was still down at 93.1 and while we don't really care about the results on rehab outings uh they really haven't been very good for him uh whether you're looking at the strikeout column or the earned run column and especially concerning in the velocity column now he has uh nine days left i think that he can technically stay on rehab um ben when you look at
how patient they've been with Garcia? Is it that 93 velocity number that is probably the explanation and what you're most looking at if he does get another rehab start?
Yeah, I think for Jimmy, you know, the fluctuating velocity, they kind of started him up and then stopped him almost immediately when he first went into rehab. And, I mean, there's no secret. He hasn't really pitched a wire-to-wire healthy season since 2023, you could argue, because after the Blue Jays dealt him at 24, he ended up on the injured list. And that's kind of where this all started.
Yeah. I think they kind of have to be a hundred percent sure about what they're doing because they don't have options for the right guys. Some of their optional guys are their most valuable guys.
And so if you're going to make a move that, you know, you know, barring it being Chad Dallas, who was optional, if you're going to make a move that exposes someone or that really changes your roster in a big way, you kind of need to make sure Jimmy Garcia is, is, healthy and ready to go. And you really don't want to bring this guy up too early and then just have him down for the year.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame for Canadian baseball?
And we don't know yet, but I'm guessing when we hear from John Schneider today,
pregame he's gonna say another outing for jimmy garcia because why push it if you don't have to right and uh you know this was even yesterday was the first time he had done the first time he had pitched with only one day off he'd taken multiple days off before that you know sometimes we see hey we want to get a guy in back-to-back games before he comes back up um i think also you know
video game style. You're waiting to make the roster move until you maybe have to make the roster move to maintain total depth. So, Ben, I apologize. I hadn't intended to do roster stuff with you until the end of the segment. There was a really fun sweep. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did homer in that game. I didn't think it was the sexiest homerun he's ever hit.
He obviously had a two-hit game with an RBI the day before. None of those were, you know, blowing anyone's top off or anything like that. However, given how the season has gone for him, again, the how versus how many, I think he's kind of in a spot right now where producing in any form is going to be something that lets him exhale a little bit.
Have you seen anything different from Vlad at all over the last couple games? And kind of what are you looking for in Chicago if we're looking for ways to build on this?
Yeah, honestly, swing-wise, you know, I still think a lot of this stuff has been fairly similar. I think at times, especially on that homer, you just see kind of the talent and the ability come through. For Vladimir Guerrero Jr., this is like really intangible and for some might not mean much.
The main thing that I saw, at least with him driving in those couple of runs, dunking in that blue pit, hitting that home run, is at least he's kind of having fun and seeming a little bit more confident again. And as intangible and sometimes smoke and mirrors as that can be, it's still an absolutely grinding mental game, even for the guys making $500 million. And it's such a...
beat down mentally of a sport when you're not doing well because you get reminded literally every single day that you're not doing well and you have to keep going through it. You get such a little break from it.
So to even have him just be able to be a bit more jovial, to not have to slam a bat or want to slam a bat, to put the jacket on, to mess around with people a little bit more, I do think that means something. Could it turn into nothing? Definitely possible. But sometimes that's all that a player of his caliber and his talent needs to get going.
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