Blue Jays' win over the Angels shows the team's true potential in 2026

The Toronto Blue Jays may have played their best game of the season in their series opening defeat of the Los Angels Angels, winning 5-2 (Apr. 20). Dylan Cease struck out 12 batters, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a home-run, while Jeff Hoffman got the save, putting the bow on a perfect night on the West Coast.

With a 9-13 record (going into Tuesday, Apr. 21), which includes multiple four-game losing streaks, the Blue Jays' bats have gone cold and the bullpen has suffered but those two things seem to be back over the previous 48 hours.

Toronto Blue Jays look much more like the team of 2025

It's been a real struggle to begin the 2026 season for the Blue Jays. After making it to Game 7 of the World Series last year, the optimism has never been higher for this ball club and they unfortunately haven't lived up to expectations thus far. You can put a ton of blame on injuries, but this team's starting pitching and bullpen should still be good enough to win games, which was shown last night.

After signing a seven-year contract worth $210M in the offseason, Dylan Cease joined an already good rotation, with the hopes that he could make it great. The 30 year-old made quite the impression in his first start, striking out 12, but Monday's game may have been his best start yet.

Cease showed his arm strength by throwing 110 pitches in five innings, matching his previous high of 12 strikeouts, while only allowing two runs. This was the third game that the Blue Jays have won that he's started, but he officially got his first career win with Toronto, making it a very special night.

After Cease's incredible performance, the bullpen kept it going as Braydon Fisher, Louis Varland and Tyler Rogers didn't allow a hit in three innings before passing it over to Hoffman in the ninth. You never know what you're going to get when the Blue Jays' closer steps on the mound, but he delivered a nearly perfect performance, allowing only one hit, while striking out three.

As for the bats, the face of the Blue Jays has been on fire lately with an 11-game hitting streak. It was a single-fest for most of that hitting streak but over the past two games, Guerrero Jr. has four RBI, a double and a home-run. That was only his second dinger of the campaign in 2026, so his power stats are still struggling but it was great to finally see another one go out of the park. Going into Tuesday's game, Guerrero was leading the league in batting average and sitting fourth in OBP. But Vladdy is capable of being the total package and there's more power just waiting to burst through.

The Blue Jays finally looked and played like the team that won 94 games in 2025 and won the division and the AL pennant. Let's hope this continues as it feels like the AL East will be a fight all year.

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