Blue Jays week in review: the good, the bad and the noteworthy for June 2

What a week for the Toronto Blue Jays who went 6-1 in seven games and climb to 31-28 on the year. The Blue Jays haven’t been three games over .500 since they were 12-9 on April 19 and are currently riding a season high five game winning streak.

It started with a 2-1 series win over the Rangers in Texas where they scored a combined four runs in three games. That preceded the sweep against the Athletics where the Blue Jays out slugged their opponents, scoring at least eight runs in each of their wins.

Toronto ends the week just a single game outside the wild card playoff picture and did exactly what they needed to do against two weaker opponents who had been scuffling going into their respective series.

Blue Jays week in review: the good, the bad and the noteworthy for June 2

The good: Feasting on some home cooking.

The Blue Jays scored a ton of runs this week at Rogers Centre, outscoring the Athletics 39-18 and continued what’s been a hot stretch in Toronto over the last few weeks. They now have the second most runs scored as a home team (166), second only to the Dodgers, who have put up 192 runs in Los Angeles. The Blue Jays have also belted the third most home runs by a home team with 42 and have pulled their once lopsided run differential to a more respectable number at -9 on the year.   

They were also scoring runs early in the game, which has been an issue for Toronto this season. They currently sit 18th in the league with 161 runs scored between the first and sixth innings. This week, the Blue Jays scored 34 of their 43 runs between those innings.

The bad: Heading to the IL

The Blue Jays placed both Daulton Varsho and Anthony Santander on the IL this week. Santander was the first to go, hitting the 10-day injured list on Friday with left shoulder inflammation. Two days later it was Varsho who was placed on that list due to a left hamstring injury.

Santander was batting just .179 with a .577 OPS at the time of his injury, while striking out a team-high 55 times in 50 games. Yet, it seemed he was on the brink of overcoming his season-long slump, slashing .245/.344/.377 with two home runs and eight walks from May 1-24.

Varsho was hitting .207 but had a team high eight home runs and a 113 OPS+ in just 24 games. Varsho has been a huge boost to the Blue Jays lineup since coming off the injured list on April 29, with the Blue Jays going 15-9 in the games he played.

Toronto has turned to Alan Roden and Davis Schneider in their absence, both of whom started the season in Toronto but were sent down due to underperformance.  

The noteworthy: Making history against DeGrom

Before they started bashing the ball around at home, the Blue Jays pulled out a gutsy 2-1 win against the Rangers and former Cy Young award winner Jacob DeGrom. It was the first game DeGrom pitched where he didn’t strike out a single batter in his entire MLB career. In fact, the Blue Jays only had one strikeout all game, and that came when relief pitcher Hoby Milner struck out Addison Barger in the eighth inning.

In his 12 big league seasons, with 230 games and 1430+ innings under his belt, DeGrom has thrown 1732 strikeouts, leading the league in both 2019 and 2020. He is the active leader in strikeouts to walk ratio with a 5.33 mark. DeGrom is a being talked about as a future Hall of Fame candidate, but on this night the Blue Jays got the better of him in a historic fashion.

On deck: Formidable Foe’s

The Blue Jays have some memorable playoff history against their opponents this week in the Philadelphia Phillies and the Minnesota Twins. The Phillies fell victim to Toronto in the 1993 World Series, while the Twins shut down the Blue Jays in two games 30 years later in the 2023 Wild Card series.

This year, both the Phillies (36-23) and the Twins (31-26) have playoff aspirations once again, just like the Blue Jays and, in the case of the Twins, could be standing in Toronto’s way for a wild card berth.

Up first, is a three-game set against the Phils in Toronto beginning on Tuesday with staff ace Zack Wheeler (6-2, 2.96 ERA) getting the ball against Bowden Francis (2-6, 5.04 ERA).