Blue Jays Talk
JTP: Vladdy Gets Dinged, John Axford In-Studio & Bautista/Encarnacion Interview
25 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What injuries are impacting the Toronto Blue Jays this season?
Mix of good news and bad news for the Toronto Blue Jays this weekend. They woke up Sunday morning in a playoff spot to the extent that that matters to you when a team is below 500 in May. They had a chance to sweep and get a five-game winning streak, and then they lost the game. They lost Dylan Cease. They lost Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
A lot of injury updates to go through, a lot of injury updates to wait on as John Schneider does media availability later this afternoon, including updates on Nathan Lucas, Alejandro Kirk, Addison Barger. In addition to Ceason Guerrero, we'll find out if Nathan Lucas is rejoining the team tonight as well.
Before, that's all later when John Schneider speaks before the Blue Jays open a three-game set at Rogers Center against the Miami Marlins. Here's good news. It really looks like we're going to get our first dome open day. If you look outside right now, it's supposed to be 20 and sunny a little later. That'll be a lot of fun. Less fun was Sunday's game.
Jays lose 4-1 after winning 5-2 on Saturday, getting to Dylan Cease and 6-2 on Friday with another solid Gosman start in two innings from Louis Varland on a day the bullpen needed him to do just that unless you wanted to turn the... The leverage situation over to someone who is not ready for a leverage situation right now.
Chapter 2: How does John Axford view the etiquette around retribution in baseball?
This is Jay Stock Plus. Blake Murphy with you. With us for the first hour of the show today is my pal John Axford, 11-year Major League veteran and former Blue Jay. How we doing, John? Good. Yeah. Doing all right. Another...
Monday in the studio, always fun to talk baseball.
Yeah, and it was a fun weekend of ball, not just because they took two or three. There was the Paul Skeens of it all as well. We're going to talk about some of the injury stuff, but before we do that, Paul Skeens wasn't all that sharp in that game. I know everyone is hittable, but man, even when he's not good, it looks impossible to hit off of him.
I think that's exactly where I was going to start. He looks good. He still looks good. It's Paul Skeens. He is a very, very good pitcher. You know, when you have the angle that he throws from, the ball moving the way it does, the velocity, all the pitches, it is a difficult thing to go up there as a hitter and do what the Jays did.
But despite, you know, everyone saying this is a rough outing, this is a rough Paul Skeens, like I'm not concerned. I'm not worried. It's... Paul Skeens, he has proven the last couple years that he is the best pitcher or one of the best pitchers in the entire league. So nine hits, I think that's going to happen. Giving up four or five runs, that's going to happen.
If it's a month, give it four or five starts, then it's a month of a problem. Then maybe there's some concern, something like that. But if it's two outings in a row, I'm... I'm not worried.
His ERA is up all the way to three, and he's allowing just over .8 base runners per inning. So the last two starts have not done a dent to his season line. I assume I know the answer to this, but he's in must-watch territory for you now. I guess the Jays will be there next year, but next time he rolls through Toronto.
Yeah, I wanted to get to the game. I couldn't do it, but just watching on TV I think sometimes is almost a better treat because you can see how much the pitches move.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Jeff Nelson provide about the Marlins' pitching staff?
You can see how much struggle the hitters have when they're up there trying to face him. So must watch in person. Yes, it's great to see that stuff in person, but sometimes on TV that stuff shows even better. Yeah, it's cool.
And then if you're me, you can sit there and have your laptop open and be like, ooh, how much did that move? Or what is that pitch that George Springer got to? So that Pirates team, Mitch Keller obviously doesn't have the stuff. Paul Skeens, but that's another guy that has five or six pitches that can change quadrants that can move the ball around a little bit.
Obviously, when we talk about who's the nastiest pitcher, who's the toughest pitcher to face, it's usually the super high stuff guys. But we're in an era where the kitchen sink guy has come back around and we're going to see it tonight with Jansen Junk as well. A little bit of nominative determinism there with the quality of his stuff, but he'll throw a lot of it at them.
So when you are trying to prep for a Skeens, when you're trying to prep for a Mitch Kelly, when you're trying to prep for a Jansen Junk, I know you didn't throw six pitches, but as a team, like how many... How many extra layers of difficulty does that... Because it's not just like, oh, instead of prepping for two pitches, I have to prep for three. It's the sequencing. It's the locations.
It's the movement profiles. I'd imagine it gets exponentially more annoying to prep for.
Especially when the velocities are changing 17, 18 miles an hour between whatever the lowest pitch may be, if it's a curveball most likely, to the four seam. Or even the sinkers sometimes are just as hard for some guys. So...
prep wise like for me as a pitcher it would be you're going to your strengths but when you have five or six pitches those strengths can be literally anything whatever you're going to be planning off of whatever you're going to be working on those hitters for like as a hitter I don't know what you're looking for when you're prepping for five or six pitches plus a guy that's throwing 98 miles an hour plus and when you get sweepers that are moving the way they do guys that are throwing power sinkers the way they are you know
Guys that have two or three fastballs kind of thing now. There's so much more velocity to look for. There's so much more movement to look for. And now you're thinking of all these other pitches. How are you going to do it? What are you going to do? So you just have to have that mindset when you first come in. What are you looking for? What are your strengths as a hitter?
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Chapter 4: What were the highlights from the Bautista and Encarnacion interview?
You get down in the count. Now you're just kind of fighting for your life and putting the ball in play wherever you can.
Another thing we're seeing with these guys who throw a lot of different stuff, and when Dylan Cease had that run of three really good starts of seven innings in a row, he was doing this as well.
He had been a fastball slider guy really heavily, and in those really good starts, he dialed away from those a little bit, and it adds an element of randomness where you're John Axford, you're coming out of the bullpen for one inning, you've got three pitches, and you're probably going to lean on your best one an awful lot. If you were to be a guy that had five, six pitches, how much...
When you're thinking through the game theory of pitcher versus hitter, how much are you trying to, maybe not entirely random because you want to have a reason for anything, but keeping the hitter off their toes by being unpredictable and what extra pitches allows you to accomplish with that?
I think you know they're looking at those metrics a lot now too of what percentages guys are throwing pitches and I think that kind of played into Skeens a little bit he was using things a little bit differently than he had in the past when there was more success from these last two outings so you know sometimes if you need to rely a little bit more heavily on a particular pitch that takes you outside of what you're maybe initially looking to do overall but if it's
the matchup that is needed, you know, I think, you know, like Cease was playing that slider off a lot more pitches rather than just the fastball. When you need that or when you can add that, that's, I mean, it's going to disrupt any sort of hitter's timing. That's your goal as the pitcher anyways, just to disrupt that timing.
And when you have five or six pitches, you just kind of utilize them the best way that you can to create that disruption. And if one or two aren't working, you can still filter them in. It doesn't,
mean you don't use it if one guy is really good on the slider it doesn't mean you don't use the slider against them you still throw it you can just play with it off of something else that is going to disrupt their timing the best way possible kevin gosman a great example that we always think of him as a fastball splitter guy but his outing on friday was slider heavy and it just you know if you if you think a team's going to be on the scent of one thing
the extra pitch options gives you the opportunity to do another, um, you primarily through three, but did you have like other pitches that you, like, if you were up against me, you would be like, Oh, I could, I could definitely throw like a fourth, fifth, six pitch here.
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Chapter 5: How are the NCAA Tournament selections relevant to baseball fans?
So more pitches was not an ideal thing for, for me.
Um, so this was, uh, pirates. You briefly played for the pirate. I think you've been briefer than your time in Toronto, right? Yeah. It was a month and a half. Yeah. Yeah.
Chapter 6: What is the current state of the American League Wild Card race?
Any, any like, I know PNC is great. I'm sure you got some good photography off there, but, uh, but yeah, not, not much else to it. Just a way station kind of stuff.
Yeah. I didn't have to go far. I was traded from Cleveland to Pittsburgh. So it was just down the road, you know, just a few hours. Not so bad. Um, I think, you know, some of my biggest moments of memories of that were just the trade itself. I didn't think it was going to happen. Also, next thing I know, I'm going there. I actually really love the uniforms. I love that pirate black uniform.
I also had nice flow going and not the no hair that I have going now, a less gray beard. So I thought it was a good look overall. The stadium, gorgeous. That's the most important thing, right? Yeah, yeah. Just making sure you look good in a uniform is very important.
Chapter 7: How do injuries affect team dynamics in Major League Baseball?
Yeah.
So you were a beard guy at that point. I was, yeah. Not a stache guy. But then I think I trimmed it back at one point to get the stache going. But yeah, PNC is great. The two levels, looking over all the bridges, seeing the city, it's great. I always loved walking there as a visitor, you know, just walking from downtown, going there. But 2014... that was the year of Madison Bumgarner.
Chapter 8: What are the prospects for the Blue Jays as the season progresses?
So we made it to the wild card game and lost to Madison Bumgarner and the Giants. That was when he really took off and probably had the best pitching playoff Showing of anybody named, well, outside of not-to-be-named player from a not-to-be-named team, if you're a Jays fan from this past World Series.
Yeah, we're not talking about him. We're certainly not talking about his game last night or anything like that.
No, no. But, yeah, it was great. I enjoyed Pittsburgh, despite it being just a short-lived time.
So he went complete game shutty against you guys in the wild card. He ended up throwing 52 and two-thirds innings over that playoff. Yeah, he came in relief too, I think. Yeah, one of those games. Yeah, so he was 2010. He started three games and came in in relief and won and was, you know, pretty good. 2012, he wasn't that good over three starts when they won the championship.
And then 2014, 103 ERA, six starts of relief appearance, 52 and two-thirds innings.
Yeah, so I just sat in the bullpen and watched him dominate, and that was the end of the season.
Yeah, no safe situation. No, I wasn't closing that either.
That was Mark Melanson. He was dominant.
The Allegheny River Strangler. Yeah, that's a tough one. Okay. Chris LaRue was a pirate as well, but didn't look quite as good. I look better. Yeah, I look better, for sure. Of course. Chris LaRue on Blue Jay Central, this series, by the way. Check that out.
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