Blue Jays Week in Review: The good, the bad, and the noteworthy for March 31st

The Toronto Blue Jays are just four games into the 2025 season and they've already provided a season's worth of emotions in a series split against the Baltimore Orioles.

From their blowout loss on Opening Day to their stifling shutdown of the Orioles on Sunday afternoon, there were some areas that the Blue Jays excelled at... along with some things that were downright frustrating to watch.

It's clear that the Blue Jays will have their work cut out for them in the highly competitive American League East, so the up-and-down performance was a bit frustrating. Still, they came out dead even with the Orioles and had a better weekend overall than the 1-3 Red Sox.

Blue Jays Week in Review: The good, the bad, and the noteworthy

Throughout the 2025 season, Jays Journal will have a weekly recap highlighting the good, bad and noteworthy from the Toronto Blue Jays in the previous week. Here is this week’s recap.

The Good: A series split with a division rival

A win in March is just as good as a win in September, which is why the Blue Jays four-game split could have been worse. There were times where the Blue Jays pitching got rocked this week (like when José Berríos gave up six earned runs in five innings on Opening Day) and there were some times when they kept the opposition off balance — like when Chris Bassitt pitched out of a couple of jams with runners in scoring position.

The Blue Jays also scored a good amount of runs (they averaging 4.5 per game and are eighth in MLB with 18 overall), but they also squandered some opportunities by hitting just .171 with runners in scoring position. In 2024, the Blue Jays finished 15th in the league with RISP.

Despite the team's up and down performance, Kevin Gausman (6 innings, 3 hits, 2 earned runs, four strikeouts on Friday) and Bassitt did their jobs on the mound, Jeff Hoffman picked up his first save on Sunday and the hitters got on base at a .333 clip overall.    

The Bad: The long ball

Blue Jays pitchers struggled to keep the ball in the ballpark, while Toronto’s offense countered with just three home runs themselves, and none from the guys who are getting paid to hit home runs.

It all started on Thursday when the Orioles became the fourth team in MLB history to hit six home runs or more on Opening Day.

The Orioles hit home runs against Berrios (3), Max Scherzer (2), Yariel Rodríguez (2), Chad Green (2), and Kevin Gausman (1), all of whom are expected to play significant roles for the Blue Jays this season. Toronto's pitching staff gave up the second-most home runs in the league (208) last year, and there will be an area of focus as the season goes on.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Blue Jays' cleanup hitter mashed two home runs and their back-up catcher hit the other. Andrés Giménez slotted into the cleanup spot for all four games of the season opening series, and he did his best to play the “slugger” role by hitting two home runs in his first 12 plate appearances despite entering the series with just 49 career home runs to his name.

Meanwhile, Tyler Heineman, who won the backup catcher role out of camp, hit his second career home run during his season debut on Sunday afternoon. His seventh inning home run gave the Blue Jays some breathing room in the eventual 3-1 win.

While the Blue Jays will take a 1-for-3 performance from Heineman and a two home runs series from Giménez, they’ll need everyone else to start putting the ball over the wall as well.

Granted, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Anthony Santander and Bo Bichette had some loud outs and some balls off the wall, but the Blue Jays can't afford to wait too long for those bats to get hot.

The Noteworthy: Bo is back

After a disappointing 2024 season in which he spent most of the second half on the injured list, Bichette hit the cover off the ball at spring training. That continued into the regular season as he made hard contact and had competitive at-bats throughout the series.

He’s slashing .467/.556/1.156 through his first 15 at-bats of the year, and had an average exit velocity was 94.7 mph, which is the hardest sustained contact he has ever produced in his career. He had a hard-hit rate of 66.7% and he reached base safely in nine straight plate appearances between Friday and Sautrday with six hits, two walks and a hit by pitch.

Buck Martinez routinely called Bichette “The Blue Jays best hitter” on Sportnet's broadcast, and he's lived up to that moniker.

Looking ahead: Six games against the NL East

The Blue Jays will host the Washington Nationals (1-2) for a three game series starting on Monday. The Nat’s won their first game of the season Sunday, and they boast a team with a lot of young promising talent that's looking to improve on a 71-91 record from a year ago.

They're finally starting to reap the rewards of the Juan Soto trade, as CJ Abrams, James Wood, and Opening Day starter Mackenzie Gore are all key parts of the lineup. Gore looked electric on Opening Day when he threw six shutout innings with 13 strikeouts. Gore is expected to pitch on Wednesday against Gausman.

After an off-day Thursday, the Blue Jays head to the Big Apple to play the Mets (1-2) in New York. From Soto’s old team to Soto’s current team, the Blue Jays will face a Mets squad that is loaded with notable names including Francisco Lindor, Pete Alonso and All-Star closer Edwin Díaz. The Mets made the biggest splash of the offseason when they outbid the Blue Jays for Soto's services with a 15-year, $767 million deal.