Uh, but every, nearly everyone else kinda had a rough one in big spots.

Yeah, I, I think when I, when I look at some of those at bats with, with runners in scoring position, whether it's two outs, less than two outs, I really look at the swing decisions before getting to two strikes.

So what were some of the swings that some of the players were taking in those more hitter leverage counts? There were a couple of here and there where I was circling, going maybe probably shouldn't have swung at that pitch in that count to where it looks like maybe they're not on time for it.

One of them being, uh, it was a, I w- I believe it was a one and one sinker to Vladdy with the bases loaded, where he ended up hitting the ground ball.

Um, but that pitch was just way, way inside.

And now, was it a strike? Yes.

But if you're not really looking for that speed and in that location, especially with the arm-side run on it, not an easy pitch to just adjust to on the fly to try to get out to left field.

He did change up what he was throwing a little bit there, uh, but the Tigers seemed a little more on top of him.

Less than three weeks, pardon me.

Uh, expectations, I mean, uh, yeah, obviously this sea- we've talked about it a ton.

This season has not gone the way that he wanted it to, Blue Jays fans wanted it to.

Um, I, I think that really when it comes down to it, you just need to see quality at-bats from him, and I know it feels like every time you look at these games, he comes up in the clutch situation with runners in scoring position.

Uh, I think I'm thinking back to, what was it, the double play that he, uh, grounded out into, uh, against the Athletics a couple of days ago.

Um, I go back to something that John Schneider had mentioned after those games or after that series, where he said they need to, the offense as a whole needs to focus on swinging at the right pitches in those certain situations.

So to me, that kinda goes into the umbrella of a quality at-bat.

What do you think Ernie's learned about himself this year that he could take into next year that would make him a little bit more consistent?

Uh, but what have you seen from a, an approach and swing standpoint that's allowed him to have s- some pretty good contact success early on?

Yeah.

Th- the, the phrase that comes to mind I guess is contact ability, but the way that he swings the bat, I just feel like he can get to a bunch of different location-- like pitch locations, pitch speeds, because of the way that his hands stay inside the baseball incredibly well.

And I think that's why he has really good numbers against left-handed pitching too, because of the way that his hands stay inside the ball.

When you think about typically lefties going up against a, a, lefty pitcher, even this, this holds true for righties going up against a righty pitcher that's trying to work them away.

The times that batters get themselves into trouble is when that barrel starts to go out in front of your hands a bit, so then you're hitting the ball off of the end of the bat.

When that ball is tailing away from you, you get the weak ground balls, you get the, just the weak outs or just not even able to make contact at all.

I'll put my feet up and let you go.

How much when you see what's going on with the Jays right now, do you think that this can reasonably continue, or do you think it's just about kind of, you know, getting the, the wick lit here and then finding different ways as the season goes along?

Yeah, maybe a little bit of both.

Um, the, the one thing, uh, you know, it's funny because Jamie brought it up, uh, just a, a couple of days ago about how many singles that this team hits and, and how they're-- I believe when he was looking up the stat, they were fourth in Major League Baseball as far as, uh, singles total this year, and that's not just something that happens over the last couple of weeks.

That's something that we've seen consistently.

Now, asked John Schneider about that yesterday.

I think, uh, he would love to see some of those singles turn more into extra bases, because obviously it takes less swings to be able to score some runs when you're driving the ball into the gaps or driving the ball out of the ballpark.

But to me, that's something that continues to put pressure on these other teams and opposing defenses and opposing pitchers too a- and you've seen it kinda come together the past couple of days, where it just feels like swing after swing, batter after batter, they're figuring out a way to, to get on base.

Right

... an extra base.

Uh, that, that ball ended up going down the left field line and kinda bouncing around a little bit.

And it's funny too, as soon as you get into the game defensively, you can pretty much guarantee that a ball's going to be hit in your direction, and sure enough, that's what happens with Davis Schneider.

He'd come in to pinch hit, stayed in in left field, and that ball was bouncing around a bit, but he got it as quickly as he could a- and threw it to Jimenez.

Now it, you need to have a good throw to the cutoff, and Schneider was able to execute that.

But one thing that stood out to me is what Adrys did when that ball was still in flight to him.

A lotta times you might see cutoffs wait until that ball gets to them, catch it, then shuffle their feet, and then initiate the throw back to the plate.

Yeah

Like, I, I don't know if the, if the front office and the, and the, a- and the organization is totally ready to admit defeat on this season and keeping those guys is kind of a-- Like, the lineup last night and the pitching staff kind of feels pretty similar to what it did before the deadline and I'm not exactly sure that's what I was thinking or expecting going into it.

I- it's still, you know, I feel like I've said this a couple of times, but it is kind of crazy to think that, you know, a- at times when we, we talk about this season, right, it's a lot of, of doom and gloom and, and rightfully so, right? The team has not played up to the expectations that I think everybody had coming into this season, but still, you turn around and, and you look at the standings and you're like, "Man, there, there's still, there's still a chance." Like, it, it's, the, as far as the playoff odds and playoff percentages go, uh, the percentage is low, but the team almost keeps winning enough games to keep them right in it.

Now, there are a lot of teams that are ahead of them in that wild card standing, um, so it'll be interesting, and I was talking to Jamie Campbell about this last night too, with some of the teams that are ahead of them in that wild card race, whether it's the Tigers or, or some other teams that ended up doing more selling at the deadline, and you wonder what those teams are going to do here in the coming weeks because even though they were selling, that doesn't automatically mean that they're just gonna immediately drop out of the race, right? Like, they're still going out there and playing baseball games, but at the same time, the Blue Jays were able to add some pieces, like, uh, Ross Atkins said yesterday, that can immediately impact the Major League team right now.

So I guess it kind of goes back to that, that hybrid mentality at the deadline this year of still being able to add pieces for the future, but still kind of having in your back pocket these pieces that can really, uh, help the team continue to win games this year because when you look at the standings, there is still a chance.

Yeah.

Uh, whether it was, you know, back in the dugout or even his reactions, um, even within at bats too.

There was one at bat in particular that comes to mind where he ended up fouling off, maybe it was his first at bat, got a fastball, uh, pretty much center cut, maybe a little bit more up in the zone, and took a big hack at it, and missed it and fouled it off.

Um, and a bit of frustration after that, kind of knowing that that was the pitch I was looking for.

Uh, what, what is that aspect like when you feel the bat coming through the zone a little bit faster for you?

Y- yeah, when your bat speed is moving through the zone just a little bit faster, it gives you a split second more to make a decision on whether or not you want to go after a pitch.

And if you think about it, if you've got slower bat speed, then you've got to get your bat moving through the zone quicker to get to the 95, 96, 97 mile per hour fastballs.

But if your bat speed is moving up there and you've got quicker bat speed and quicker hands getting through the zone, then that gives you just a little bit more time to make some of those decisions.

And this is going to be different for, for every single hitter.

But when I think about bat speed, it's not necessarily just going up there saying, "You know what? I'm just going to swing the bat harder.

I'm just going to swing as hard as I possibly can." But to me, having that increased bat speed is a product of, of everything being in rhythm and everything being in sync with your swing.

So to simplify, what are you looking from, looking for from Trey Savage in the first inning or two today, uh, as an indicator of which version of Trey Savage we're getting a- and where he's at right now?

And I, I wanted to ask you this, were, were you surprised that, that John, uh, moved George into the cleanup spot? And, you know, is this something that we might expect to see going, going forward?

Uh, I think maybe just a little bit because we're just so used to seeing George, I guess, in the, in the leadoff spot.

But also, I, I think there's something to be said about just kind of changing things up right in the lineup and just kind of mixing things up, trying to do something different.

Um, because obviously the Blue Jays have kind of been in that stretch where they just couldn't get anything going offensively.

So maybe just mix- simply mixing up the order just a little bit, um, could help.

And, you know, when George goes out there and hits what it was a slider that he crushed out of the ballpark too, so [laughs] that starts to make things, uh, feel a little bit better too.

But, uh, I think back to what was at the beginning of, of last year too where George wasn't in that leadoff spot and then kind of worked his way back into the leadoff position by the end of the year.

Mm-hmm

It seems to be the question we're all searching for an answer to is what's going on with Vladdy and can you fix it? Well, I ask you, Madison, what's going on with Vladdy and do you have a fix for it?

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I agree with you.

I feel like it's every day that people are talking about it, and especially since it seems like the team just hasn't been able to get on one of those consistent roles, and I think it's Joe that says it all the time.

More runs can fix a lot of problems, so oftentimes you look at the offense to try to get things going, especially maybe when you're starting pitching, it's not giving you as much length as we're used to, or there are some other mistakes.

You look at the offense, and yesterday I do feel like there was an intentional change with his timing and how quickly he was kind of getting back into his loaded position and that was something that Hazel had mentioned during the start of the game was that they might see some more mechanical tweaks and now I feel like I've seen quite a few of those mechanical tweaks over the past couple of weeks but as I mentioned on our show yesterday, I still go back to timing.

You have to be on time and you have to be swinging at the right pitches.

So what's been different about the inability to cash runners when they're standing on second, third, or they have multiple guys on base at the same time?

What stands out to you most when you look at, uh, Vlad again posting a 726 OPS at this point in the season?

You know, when, when I watch, when I watch his swings and when I've been watching his swings over the course of the past, you know, couple of weeks, and it was, I want to say it was the swing in the Orioles series that kind of, like, made me really, really look at it.

Now, granted, if you're, if you're not having the season that you want and the numbers aren't going the way that you want, you, you, you've got to try something.

You can't just continue to do the same thing over and over again.

But I felt like his swing was so steep and so short to the baseball, um, that, like, his ha- and his hands are fast through the zone, that he was getting there so quick that he wa- wasn't really giving himself enough time to where that baseball was staying on the barrel.

A- and when, getting into the weeds here, but when, when you have that steep angle with your barrel, a- and if you think about it, it's almost like your barrel's chopping down through the strike zone.

So essentially, there's only a split second where you can actually make really hard contact with the baseball versus, I know you and I talked about last year when he was swinging it to where it felt like everything he was hitting was the size of a beach ball.

Mm-hmm.

What, what's your initial read on him?

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you guys, uh, both, for having me.

I've got a great view here of all the fans piling in down here in Dunedin, so a lot of, uh, excitement surrounding the Blue Jays, and I think there's a lot of excitement surrounding Okamoto, too.

One of the things that I've really enjoyed watching from his swing is just how smooth his swing is and how it feels like there's just no rush to it, um, and, and an effortless sort of power that comes with his swing, too.

Uh, one of the things, too, when I, when I watch his swing, I almost feel like his front foot kind of hovering over the ground a bit is i- in my opinion, kind of a way that he's able to control his timing.

Um, so when...

You know, watching film, obviously, before coming down here, I felt like he was able to adjust to a bunch of different types of pitching because he was able to adjust his timing with that front foot.

Are these, are these starts gonna be watched any differently by this front office, by this coaching staff, maybe by his teammates, than previous Berrios starts?