Blue Jays week in Review: the good, the bad and the noteworthy for June 23

In what should have been a week where the Toronto Blue Jays padded their stats and put some wins in their back pockets turned into a week of frustration and missed opportunities. The Blue Jays went 3-3 over their six-game home stand with a 2-1 series win over the Arizona Diamondbacks and a 2-1 series loss to the lowly Chicago White Sox. It’s one thing for the Blue Jays to not finish off a sweep against a good team in the Diamondbacks, it’s another to allow the White Sox and their anemic offense to outscore the team with the best home offence in baseball, even by a small margin 12-10.  

The Blue Jays left at least one win on the table when the White Sox rallied late to take the series finale 4-2 on Sunday, on a day where the Blue Jays went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position. However, they did manage to secure three wins this week to run their record to 41-36 on the year and remain in a playoff position. Here’s a deeper look at what took place this week for the Blue Jays.  

The good: Lineup shuffle pays off up

The Blue Jays had a new look at the top of their lineup, with manager John Schneider slotting Bo Bichette, Addison Barger and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. into the 1-3 spots in five of the six games. The only exception was Saturday’s contest when Barger was held out of the lineup due to right hip discomfort. Nathan Lukes took his spot, and it seems like having a lefty-hitter in between Bichette and Guerrero is a sound strategy.

The 1-3 hitters went a combined 26-for-71, with a .366 average, 18 RBIs, 12 runs scored and nine walks with 10 strikeouts this week. They’ll hope to keep this hot stretch going as the competition gets a little better this upcoming week.  

The bad: Turnbull fails his test

The Blue Jays had given Spencer Turnbull as good an opportunity as any to show he could be relied upon as a starter for this team, who’s fourth and fifth options have been a question mark for most of the season. Turnbull got the assignment to start against the lowly Chicago White Sox, making it his first start as a Blue Jay and first in the MLB in almost a year.

But Turnbull was inconsistent against a White Sox team that has put up some of the worst offensive numbers in the league this season. Entering Sunday’s game, their .221 batting average is dead last and they have managed just 268 runs scored, which is the third least amount of runs in all of baseball.

However, they managed four runs in just two innings on five hits and two walks against Turnbull. Four of the five hits he gave up left the White Sox bats at 94.1 m.p.h. or harder, with three of them eclipsing 102 m.p.h. The White Sox were ahead 7-0 by the third inning and the Jays had no answers.

The noteworthy: Berrios bounces back and hits 1500 innings

The Blue Jays needed a solid performance from their starter after Kevin Gausman had an underwhelming outing against the Diamondbacks on Thursday, and the uninspiring bullpen day performance against the White Sox on Friday. José Berrios gave the Blue Jays exactly what they needed and then some on Saturday, dominating the Chicago lineup through 7.2 IP. He allowed just two hits, with five strikeouts and gave up just one unearned run.

It was terrific to see Berrios get back to his usual self after the Phillies knocked him around for six runs in 4.1 IP in his last start. After that start he talked about making better in-game adjustments for his next outing and Berrios accomplished that against the White Sox, working around three walks and pitching into the eighth inning for the first time all-season.

Working that long on Saturday gave Berrios 1500+ innings in his career, 711.2 of those have been in a Blue Jays uniform. He is 102-80 with a career 4.04 ERA in 260 lifetime starts and has a career 17.2 bWAR. Since 2018, Berrios has made the second most starts of anyone in the game with 204, behind only Philadelphia's Aaron Nola (208).

On deck: On the road again

After an off-day on Monday, the Blue Jays hit the road for a six-game road trip that will take them through Cleveland and Boston. The Guardians took two of the first three head-to-head meetings this season, in three tightly contested games in Toronto at the beginning of May. The Blue Jays were 16-18 after that series but have gone 25-18 since.

After the three games in Cleveland the Blue Jays visit Fenway Park for the first time since early April when they took three of four from the Red Sox. The Blue Jays won’t play the Red Sox again until the second last series of the year.