Blue Jays' team meeting brings immediate relief with much-needed win

The Toronto Blue Jays' season is at a tipping point. The manager knows it, the players know it, the fans know it. It's about as obvious as it can be, even considering we're only one week into May.

But what's the panic level in the Blue Jays' clubhouse right now?

We don't know if anyone has officially pressed the panic button, but it's fair to say someone's hand is hovering over the emergency alarm. The team reportedly held a closed-door meeting after Tuesday's thorough 10-1 dismantling at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Jays limped into Philadelphia after a losing weekend in Washington and watched helplessly as the best team in baseball ran roughshod over José Berríos — one of the Jays' few bright spots this season.

As Sportsnet's Arden Zwelling reported before Wednesday's game, the meeting was described as "productive." According to Hazel Mae, that sounds like all the information we're going to get.

Blue Jays' team meeting brings immediate relief with much-needed win

Fortunately, the closed-door meeting helped produce some immediate relief and on-field results on Wednesday with a 5-3 win and a series split with the Phillies. Now 17-20, they still have plenty of work ahead of them. They're 7.0 games behind the AL East-leading Baltimore Orioles and have only won 4 of their last 10 contests.

As Zwelling pointed out before Wednesday's win, the Jays need to go 73-53 the rest of the way to equal their 89 wins from 2023. They got off to a good start, doing the things that manager John Schneider talked about after Tuesday's loss.

"It comes down to players in certain moments having really good at-bats or making really big pitches or making good plays on defence,” Schneider said, per Zwelling. “And we can all look ourselves in the face and say that we're not doing that right now. Not for a lack of prep, not for a lack of effort. We’ve just got to get better in those spots.”

The winning effort from a sun-soaked Citizens Bank Park saw starter Chris Bassitt stymy the scorching Phillies bats for 6 1/3 innings. The Jays piled on 12 hits, including a much-welcomed patented opposite-field RBI single from the struggling Bo Bichette. Multiple Jays had multi-hit games: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 3-for-5, Davis Schneider went 2-for-3 with a walk, and Kevin Kiermaier went 3-for-4.

Berríos knows the Jays still have a chance, as he told Mae after seeing his ERA balloon from 1.44 to 2.85, but that it's important for the team to stick together.

After things hit a boiling point on Tuesday, Schneider, who was ejected for arguing whether Kyle Schwarber swung on a hit-by-pitch, told MLB.com's Paul Casella that he knows how important the next stretch of games is for his club.

"You've got to try to continue to put the season in kind of segments a little bit, and really -- I've said it -- the season doesn't get any longer," Schneider said, per Paul Casella. "No matter who you're playing, you've got to go out and try to do what you need to do to win. ... It's going to be an important stretch."

A single win for a team that has been fighting it hard doesn't tell us enough about how the rest of the season will go. We'll have to wait and see how they respond after Thursday's off day. They welcome the 20-15 Minnesota Twins for three games at Rogers Centre on Friday before three games on the road against the 23-12 Orioles.

This next week could decide the fate of their season. Let's hope Tuesday's team meeting helps.