Shapiro and Atkins (and Dante!) Speak!

On building a winner, Rogers Centre renovations, Bo Bichette's struggles, Kevin Gausman, Jordan Romano, and much more!

Screengrab via Sportsnet

Blue Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro sat down for a spell in The Interview Room with Sportsnet’s Stephen Brunt at some point during spring training down in Dunedin, talking big picture stuff and revealing details about the coming renovations to the Rogers Centre in a pair of clips published over the weekend.

Meanwhile, on Sunday the club’s general manager, Ross Atkins, joined Ben Wagner in the Sportsnet radio booth during the fourth inning of Sunday’s 3-2 Blue Jays win over the Astros for a more roster-oriented discussion.

As you’d expect, there were all kinds of interesting nuggets and things worth dissecting within the comments of the team’s two top executives, so here they are in very close to full, along with some thoughts and observations of my own!

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Mark Shapiro in The Interview Room

You can view these clips here: part one | part two

On the PDC and building a winning organization

The Blue Jays’ new player development complex in Dunedin, Florida, opened its doors back in February 2021, meaning the Jays have now had two springs in which to make use of its many heavily taxpayer funded bells and whistles as a full organization. Work goes on at the complex all year, of course, but it’s really during spring that the Jays clearly believe the benefits of the facility hit their peak.

And since the interview was taking place in Dunedin, asking Shapiro for his thoughts on the PDC was a logical place to start.

Turns out he’s very much into it!

It's still overwhelming for me. I think maybe when you think about something, conceptually, for so long, you think about 'Can we actually take a building, take bricks and mortar and make it more of something that drives a championship culture and is an expression to players of how much we care, how relentless we are in giving them the best resources to help them be the best players and teammates they can be, and obviously just drive performance,’ which is obviously clear.'

Rarely does something go off the way you think it's going to go off, but to hear feedback from players that have been here, from players that have joined us, the wow factor is there, the caring factor is there, and I think that they know, 'Hey, this is best in class, there's nothing better out there anywhere in North America.' It's pretty exciting for us to have that.

Shapiro has been consistent from the start about making Toronto a place that the best players want to play, and the club genuinely seems to be achieving that. Comments from Marcus Semien calling Toronto a “baseball paradise” seem like only the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, getting the gift of Vladdy from his predecessor obviously helps. You can have the fanciest training facilities in the world, but that’s not going to move the needle for a lot of guys if your team is going to be garbage. Winning breeds winning, and the Jays certainly seem to have set themselves up well to harness that here at the start of the Vlad Era — something they’ve done very deliberately over the last six-and-a-half years.

They’ve been thinking about all of this a very long time. Case in point? I would like to note that it’s interesting how Shapiro calls the PDC the best “in North America.” It’s a small comment, but it underlines just how broadly he thinks about this stuff. It’s not just about being the best in baseball, it’s about being the best in all of sports — or, at least, North American sports. I’m sure he’s looked to soccer clubs in Europe for advice and inspiration as well. And I definitely remember that early on in his tenure he revealed that he’d met with executives of the San Antonio Spurs to discuss team- and culture-building.

In fact, though I didn’t remember this until just now, that trip seems to have been the genesis of the Jays’ “get better every day” mantra, which you’ll frequently hear cited by players and executives when talking about their process — and see plastered on the walls if you’re someone who ever has access to the Jays’ facilities.

Here’s what a reader told me Shapiro had said about it at a coaches clinic from a 2017 piece I wrote for Blue Jays Nation.

“We want to grow and improve, think and ask questions every day. The Spurs are an organization you can learn from.”

“They stressed, don’t focus on results, focus on effort. Focus on learning and getting better every day.”

As a result of the trip, “Our new mantra is ‘get better every day‎.'”

“Get better every day” will replace all quotes and graphics in Dunedin facility. Atkins and Shapiro debated inspirational quotes for walls, but Atkins suggested they just go simple: “Get better every day” will be visible everywhere.‎

Shapiro says the focus remains acquiring and developing talent.‎ San Antonio reinforced that.

And it’s not just player development. “Even interns should come in, not to ‘pay dues,’ but to make us better. We are about ‘getting better every day.'”

It’s, uh, also worth noting that the Spurs were in a much better place, organizationally, back in 2017 than they are at the moment. *COUGH* But it was a hell of a run they had, and you can see that for a long time Blue Jays have been trying to put some of those same kinds of building blocks in place.

Brunt’s follow-up question went straight to the heart of all that, as he asked whether Shapiro had by now achieved the organizational goals that he initially set out to achieve.

After first making clear that there was still a big box — i.e. a World Series victory — the club has yet to tick, Shapiro continued:

A lot of those goals were things beneath the surface that we feel are so important to sustaining a championship calibre team. People tend to just focus — it's easier for a fan to digest and just focus on decisions, singular major league roster decisions. In reality, those decisions are more powerful, more impactful, when a strong foundation's in place. It's thinking about everything as a resource or a tool that we can use to drive a sustainable championship organization. And so I would say, when we think about that infrastructure, that foundation, most of those boxes have been ticked.

There is, of course, another box they’re yet to tick, which is the building that they play in 81 times a year. Shapiro and Brunt would get to that later on in the conversation.

On the challenges posed by the pandemic

I don’t think it will ever not feel weird to have good things to say about Rogers Communications, who have owned this team for nearly 22 years, the vast majority of which were spent acting like one of the league’s have-not teams — essentially until they were compelled to act like the big market team they clearly are when teams in the league’s largest 15 markets were phased out of receiving revenue sharing money over the course of the 2012-2016 collective bargaining agreement.¹

That said, uh, good on Rogers for how they’ve allowed Shapiro and his organization to keep pushing their vision forward despite a real disruption of revenue in 2020 and 2021. As always, ownership’s support is something Shapiro is quick to acknowledge.

The pandemic absolutely impacted the business. It was an example of the moment where we were extremely fortunate to both have the belief of leadership, of Edward Rogers, Tony Staffieri, the belief of those leaders in the plan. And the magnitude of the business that owns us, that it was smaller in the broader scheme of their business.

Everything's a trade-off, but certainly in this case I can think of no greater positive than our ownership structure and how it really allowed us to maintain course — which is so important, because any disruption of decision-making or strategy can be really detrimental when you're trying to build a world champion.

I’ll say this: Shapiro clearly seems better at playing the corporate game than his rather, uh, idiosyncratic predecessor. Flattery will get you everywhere, my boy!

Asked if the conversations about all of this stuff with the higher-ups were tricky, Shapiro, as usual, offered nothing but praise.

I think they were more stressful for me, internally, than they ever were in any interaction I had. There was never — again, recognize what a small piece we are of that business. So they're focussed on running their primary business the majority of the time. My insertion points are pretty small, but they were consistently supportive.

I'd put it this way, it was nothing we could control. It wasn't like a misstep, it was a circumstance. And it was a circumstance of challenge. So we've got some long-term challenges we always manage against: FX, the foreign exchange rate; the AL East is certainly one we have to manage against. But this one came up and we did our best to deal with it. Some exceptional work throughout the organization. But it impacted our business in a way that — very few businesses were impacted the way that sports and entertainment were impacted. So just understanding and supportive. There was never any hesitation.

I must say that can’t recall Shapiro ever pointing out how small the Jays are relative to the rest of Rogers’ business before. Or at least not so starkly. It does make the point that it was probably easier for their ownership to float them during the pandemic than might have been the case for other teams. He seems careful, however, not to veer into the sort of territory that was touched on by this early 2021 article from MLB owners’ favourite Bill Madden of the New York Daily News, in which it was incredulously wondered on behalf of other big market teams where all the Blue Jays’ free agent spending money was coming from and why it wasn’t subject to revenue sharing.

Sucks to suck, other teams!

How close are you being a sustainable winner?

We move on to a pretty simple question, with a pretty simple short answer, but a slightly more complicated long one.

Shapiro replied to it thusly:

We're pretty close. Every year you enter into the season thinking about the ifs. A front office, when you're telling the narrative and the story of your major league team, you're thinking about the ifs. When you're dreaming a little bit, you're thinking, 'It could be a championship year if this happens, and if this happens, and if that happens.' We're at the point where it's if we stay healthy, you know? It's not dreaming that we're going to get production from young players that are unproven, it's not dreaming that we're going to make a trade that's going to put us over the top.

We've got a team that we feel is exceptional, and we've got a track record of a city and a country that support us when we win. So, there's still some things that have to come together. Fans have to come back in big numbers. And ultimately, you know, it's never going to be a mystery whether we can take the payroll higher. If the attendance comes back the way the attendance has in the past, we will be able to elevate payroll — not into the top five, but into an area that I feel is very comfortable for us to sustain a championship. Still have to make tough decisions. Doesn't mean you just grow perpetually in one direction. It'll still involve some tough decision making. But we'll be in a really good spot.

But we will have to have fans come back in a meaningful way. And I think that some of the early results of the way people have watched our games is really encouraging for that.

I know it’s unfair to compare TV numbers between Canada and the United States — and not just because of the exchange rate, but because the pharmaceutical and political ads that viewers are deluged with in the States just aren’t things that exist at nearly the same scale here — but it’s hard to reconcile the “not into the top five” thing with the crowing about TV ratings. Sure, the relationship between the team and Rogers and Sportsnet is a bit unusual, but when the Jays were in Houston the weekend before this past one the series opener had 1.45 million viewers tuned it. That’s crazy! Last year ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, broadcasting to a country with nearly ten times the population of this one, averaged 1.46 million viewers.

Anyway, all the other stuff Shapiro says here makes sense — gate revenue is clearly a priority for this team, as we’ll get to — but the TV stuff has just never computed for me. The Jays as a TV property are astonishingly valuable, and despite all the nice things I’m willing to say about Rogers these days, I remain convinced that more money should be going into payroll because of it.

On Rogers Centre renovations

And now here we get to the fun stuff. Or, at least, the stuff that will be fun if you’re well-off enough to continue sitting in the lower bowl at the Rogers Centre once the inevitable price-jacking happens!

It's a big commitment. It's going to be a major re-envisioning of the building. It's going to be a transformation from the inherent nature of a circular dome, multipurpose stadium, to the best we can make it, when you're inside it, into a ballpark.

Primarily lower bowl focussed. Primarily player facility as well as fan experience — trying to create diversity of experiences for our fans that don't just want to come watch a baseball game, but also want to have entertainment that fits their lifestyle, and what they're looking to achieve. And the ability to drive more revenue as well.

We're handicapped by having among the least in major league baseball lower bowl premium seating — we just don't have clubs, we don't have lower bowl seats beyond 200 seats in the entire lower bowl. We have seats that don't face the action — we have seats that face the outfield because they were there for other sports. So, we're going to change all that. We're going to scrap everything that's in the lower bowl, we're going to re-envision and reimagine the lower bowl, and change the fan and player experience. It will be dramatic.

It won't be everything that I want to do, everything that we'd hoped we'd do, because that's the reality, you have to make choices. But it will be a major modernization of our business and our experience that will buy us time until we can find the longer-term solution.

That longer-term solution — a new ballpark — is understandably going to be a very complicated thing to find, because the team clearly does not want to give up the incredible little bit of geography they’re on. It’s just too perfect.

Frankly, given the scale of the renovations that Shapiro is planning, they’re probably not going to be jumping straight back into that search anytime soon, even if the timeline they’re putting on these changes is to have them last for “just” 10 to 15 years.

Which is great! The Rogers Centre is a great place to watch a ballgame when it’s packed, and the tweaks that are coming will surely make it that much better. Seats that face the action? What a world! Less cookie cutter symmetry? Sign me up!

Making the games less accessible to newer and younger fans? That I worry about. And not addressing the swaths of useless real estate in the upper deck way down in the corners, on either side of the hotel? Seems like a thing worth doing!

Still, clearly this is a major project for the club, and one that Shapiro presents as essential to this team becoming the kind of sustainable winner he’s trying to build.

He continued:

It is definitively all about that last box that we have to check. Everything we're doing is not for any purpose other than to win a world championship. We're not doing it just to say the peacock is proud of a building that's a nice building, no, we're doing to provide a championship atmosphere for our players, to provide a best in class experience for our fans, so they come more and they allow us to pay players more, because that's going to allow us to have a greater probability of winning championships.

If you were to go back to late 2015 and 2016, I know a lot of fans would have had a very difficult time believing this, but here in 2022, with Mark Shapiro at the helm? It’s a pretty incredible time to be a Blue Jays fan, isn’t it?

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Ross Atkins on the radio broadcast (and Dante on the radio too!)

As mentioned above, GM Ross Atkins joined Ben Wagner in the radio booth for an inning on Sunday. Naturally, with play-by-play needing to continue as the inning progressed, this conversation was a little more disjointed than the slickly produced Shapiro interview, so some of the comments here will be out of order.

On Bo Bichette’s struggles

We’ll start with the topic that came up the most during the interview — and the one that allows us to dig into some very interesting comments from Dante Bichette made here on Monday with Jeff Blair and Kevin Barker on Sportsnet 590.

Despite three hits, including a key home run, in his last two games, Bichette’s wRC+ for the season stands at just 61. He’s also made five errors at shortstop this season, which puts him in a tie for the second most in the majors, after leading MLB in that (not especially statistically sound) category in 2021 with 24.

Is there cause for concern? Not according to Atkins.

It's so interesting with Bo. He's such an aggressive player, and so athletic, and so dynamic, and I think it's learning to corral those things that are so special, and find the right rhythm and pace for him. And I think he's done a phenomenal job. Really, I don't know if anybody works as hard as he does. And it's easy to ride with him through some of those bumps that everyone's going to have. But when someone has a good process, they keep their confidence high, it's easy to ride with them through some of those bumps.

Dante produced some compelling reasons to ride with his son from an offensive perspective, too, which we’ll get to in a moment. First, though, Atkins continued regarding Bo’s defence after being asked if it’s a concern that some of his miscues seem to come in bunches.

I mean, it's different for everybody. I think it's more back to the things I was saying before. He's still learning who he is as a shortstop. It's remarkable to think about the fact that he's still performing at such a high level. He's shooting to be great, he's not shooting to be someone who just knocks the ball down and tries to get it across, he's trying to be the best shortstop in the game, and is such an exciting player for so many reasons. And the best, who are striving for that, are going to have those small hiccups.

One might look at that as a GM trying to put lipstick on a pig here a little bit, but I tend to not think so. Sure, there have been some high profile errors this season — and when you’re constantly playing one-run games, pretty much every error is — but Bichette clearly improved in the field over the course of last season, and despite a couple “hiccups” so far, will definitely be helped by the addition of the incredible glove of Matt Chapman to his right.

Plus, it should be noted, that the Jays aren’t the only team willing to take the bad with the good in this regard. Last year the players who immediately trailed Bichette on the error leaderboard were Rafael Devers and Fernando Tatís Jr. This season so far he trails Tim Anderson, and is even with Brandon Crawford and the scorching hot J.P. Crawford. The Jays aren’t really doing anything anybody else isn’t here.

There’s even reason to not be worried about his struggles with the bat so far, and the 0-2 counts he seems to consistently get himself into, as Atkins addressed later on in the interview.

I mean, listen, every player's different. Bo's obviously a very aggressive hitter. He covers so much of the plate and then some. Really, really, as I talked about, just how athletic and dynamic he is. Really, what we want to see Bo do is be at his best being aggressive, and not taking that away from him. I think in time he's going to be so just powerful and be so productive that he'll get pitched to differently throughout his career, and he'll need to make adjustments. What I like to see Bo doing is being who he is, and being aggressive, and not get stuck in between.

The adjustments Atkins is referring to are probably a bit more subtle than the ones it’s so easy for fans to make — don’t swing so damn much! be more selective! — but make more sense than fundamentally changing who he is as a hitter.

A great illustration of that idea is what his father, Dante, had to say during his hit with Blair and Barker — although Dante didn’t frame it as an adjustment that needs to be made, but one that has already been made, continually referring to Bo’s struggles in the past tense.

As they always are, his comments were incredibly insightful.

This is where you can kind of look at some of the underlying numbers and say, 'OK, that's starting to make a little more sense.' And with Bo, his exit velo this year — average exit velo — is the highest it's ever been. His hard hit percentage is, I think, eighth in all of baseball. So there's some bad luck going on there. Having said that, I think most of those numbers are because he's just incredibly stronger this year. The ball in BP, in spring training, was like, 'Oh man.' You can see the man strength starting to kick in.

I still don't think he was right. I don't think it's all bad luck. I think he was off. And what I notice, again, if you look into the underlying numbers, where was he off? Well, he wasn't hitting the fastball, but he wasn't late on the fastball. When you still-frame it (on video) at contact the barrel was on the fastball, but he was underneath it. So, to me, that's a swing path thing. And he knew that. I saw him in Houston — first time I saw him all year — and I just said, 'You're just under the ball. You're not late. Because everybody's saying you're not catching up to fastballs, you're late. You're under the fastball, you're not late.' So how do we fix that? And for a couple days there he said, 'Dude, I'm trying so hard to get on top of the fastball, it's just I can't do it.' And I think what we found was he was trying so hard to stay back and get on the ball that his back shoulder was dropping. And whenever your shoulder drops — I don't care what you do with your swing, if your shoulders aren't on plane with the ball, your bat's not going to be on plane with the ball. Because your barrel falls to your shoulders and then it takes off, so it's always in the same path as your two shoulders.

So, he's fixed that. The back shoulder is a little higher. I would say this series, this homestand, his average exit velo's been over 100. That would lead the big leagues if he does that all year long. And his average hard hit rate is 75% — that would lead the big leagues by about 20. So, he's there. He's in a good spot. Can't tell you he's going to get hits, because I think he's hit two balls at 110, 111 for outs. Hopefully that starts to turn. But I think he's in a better place right now. That's what I'm seeing, so I think there are some good signs like you guys are seeing.

Feel free to hire Dante back anytime, Jays! How do you not love that kind of blend of analytics and old-school knowhow? And hopefully he’s right. He’s certainly not wrong about how well Bo has been striking the ball this year… uh… when he’s not swinging and missing — something that wasn’t addressed here, but I think is a pretty significant issue as well, given that Bichette’s walk rate (3.0%) and strikeout rate (26.7%) right now would both be career worsts.

Data via BaseballSavant

Anyway, back to Atkins, who addressed similar concerns — though he was more talking about Bichette’s glove work — when he was asked about having to potentially pump the brakes on certain players’ perfectionism.

I mean, we're never pulling back on the reins as they strive to be the best they can be. I think from time to time all you have to try to hope that you can help them navigate is being too hard on themselves. Each of these guys cares so much, and I do think it's a massive separator for professional athletes is the ability to turn the page. Right now, for Bo to take that play completely out of his mindset and be ready to make a big play right here, get a big hit next inning. it's one of the hardest things to do in life, and professional athletes — I think it's one of the biggest separators for them.

This is exactly the kind of thing that Samad Taylor — who is slashing .257/.396/.459 for Buffalo, with a 16.5% walk rate, a 22.0% strikeout rate, and 12 stolen bases in 13 tries over 23 games, which is potentially putting him in line for a call-up at some point soon — spoke to David Laurila of FanGraphs about in a thoughtful interview back in February.

“We have a mental performance coach that I was working with while I was in Australia, playing winter ball in the COVID year,” Taylor told Laurila. “This was over Zoom. I’m hard on myself. Like, I’m a super-big critic, because I know the talent I have and what I can do. I also know that when I’m doing something that isn’t right, I’m not going to get away with it. So I’m super duper, duper, duper hard on myself.

“Talking to my mental performance coach, I realized that I had to take a step back. I play a game of failure. When I was early on in my career — those first couple of years — I couldn’t accept failure. I didn’t know how to accept striking out, or accept making an error, or whatever the failure may have been. Over the COVID year, I began to understand that I needed to take a step back and learn how to accept things.”

Atkins isn’t just making this stuff up out of thin air, in other words. And with the Blue Jays' culture, resources, and a guy like Dante in his ear, it’s no wonder everyone who matters seems convinced that it’s only a matter of time before we start to see the best of Bo Bichette again.

In fact, Atkins was pleased by Bichette’s progress on this very broadcast, commenting unprompted after Bo’s fourth-inning ground out: “That was a good at-bat, though. He saw those pitches well, he seemed to be a little bit more relaxed. That was more encouraging.”

On Yusei Kikuchi

The Jays made a pretty big commitment to Yusei Kikuchi over the winter, signing him to a three-year, $36 million contract despite needing, essentially, to rebuild him as a pitcher. The early results haven’t exactly been great — I wrote about his Friday start in this week’s Weekend Up piece — but Atkins, unsurprisingly, isn’t concerned. At least not publicly.

Yeah, I'm really excited about Yusei. I think Pete is extremely encouraged, Yusei is encouraged. We've had a lot of good interactions about — we're seeing progress in the process. And the results haven't been where he wants them, and we know they're going to be better, but the power to his fastball — really his breaking pitches are exceptional weapons as well. I think once he gets on the plate earlier in the count with his fastball it's going to change everything. And we're early. We're early into this with the shortened spring training, and we're seeing lots of encouraging things.

The fastball being on the plate was something that I focused on in my write-up, as did Joe Siddall following the telecast of Friday’s game. But what I think does need to be highlighted more often is Atkins point that it’s early.

The comparison between Kikuchi and Robbie Ray, two hard-throwing lefties, is an easy one to make, even if it’s naturally unfair given Ray’s Cy Young performance last season. But if we’re going to do that, I think it’s important to acknowledge that not only did Ray have a full spring training with the club before he really took off, he also had their advice heading into the offseason after 2020, and over a month’s worth of time working with Pete Walker, Matt Buschman, et al., in September 2020.

Kikuchi, who didn’t sign with the club until mid-March, definitely isn’t there yet — in either sense of the phrase.

On Kevin Gausman, George Springer, and Vladdy

Kevin Gausman, on the other hand, who I also wrote about in my Weekend Up piece, is very obviously there. In fact, he’s beyond there. He’s been otherworldly so far.

Cue a typically Atkins-ish answer!

He really has been impressive. You know, I think the coolest thing for us is everything that happens before he takes the mound. His process, his inclusion and involvement with other pitchers, other position players. Just really professional, very easygoing, very likeable person, and man, he's been an incredible to this roster for sure.

He had similar praise for George Springer when asked about the weekend’s hero.

Man, he's special. It's high energy, and it's consistent. It's really consistent high energy and it is very, very helpful in a baseball grind season — 162. We talk about it too much probably, but his energy, his positivity, coupled with his ability to almost temper his adrenaline in the biggest moments is about as good of a combo as you're going to get. And on top of it, he's a great husband, he's a great dad, he's a great son, he's a great friend. He just treats people really consistently, and that sets an incredible example for our young players.

And though he didn’t touch on the off-field stuff, he made clear, when asked about what’s maybe been a lack of consistency from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. this year, that he doesn’t agree with that at all.

Oh yeah. I mean, he's been incredible. I think everybody's going to have games where they don't hit doubles and home run, even Vladdy. But man, his approach has been very good, he's really been the stabilizer for us in that lineup. Hasn't got pitched to quite as much, probably, as he will — as our lineup, when we add Teo into it, and we get Bo going. But yeah, he's been as consistent as anyone in the league, really.

Very tactful in declining to call out some of the absolute dogshit umpiring Vlad has been faced with this season, Ross!

On health

Nothing that hadn’t already been reported here, but since we were talking about Teoscar (weren’t we?) I should note that Atkins provided a couple health updates here as well.

Yeah, hopefully we'll see here Teo and Jano real soon, and get Ryu back into the rotation, Ryan Borucki back. We'll have other injuries and other setbacks, fortunately they haven't been significant in nature in not missing more than a few weeks.

Addressing Hernández specifically, he informed listeners that a return is close.

We're taking it a day at a time, but I would hope that we see him at some point on that next road trip, if not early in it.

Teo seems to be the one who will be the first to return, but hearing that Jansen and (fingers crossed) Ryu won’t be far behind him is pretty great news. They can only help! (Fingers still crossed!!)

Lastly, on the bullpen

You can’t have watched a Blue Jays game this season and not noticed how the bullpen has been vital to this team’s success — a far cry from where the Jays’ relievers were at last year.

Atkins, it turns out, has indeed watched a Blue Jays game this season.

Yeah, I mean (Saturday) was just so encouraging, to see Cimber, Mayza, and Romano come through one of the best lineups in baseball, and really without a blink. Really, it was the aggressiveness, the athleticism these guys have. You know, I think that one of our biggest strengths is how guys in that bullpen — albeit, they get along with everyone on our 40-man roster and 28-man roster now, but they are very tight. They're always together, they're always talking about baseball, they're always helping one another, and that positivity out there goes a long, long way.

He added some comments on Jordan Romano specifically, too.

He's been awesome. I think that (Saturday) night was the best he's been. He was really aggressive, very efficient, both pitches working. Man, it's so fun. So fun to think about, too, what that means for this city and for young players watching. What it means for his mom and dad, who are here every night. driving in from 20 minutes away. It's an incredible story already, and I think there's a lot more to it. I think there's a lot more ahead in his career, a lot more excitement for this organization, with him being a big part of it.

First of all… 20 minutes away? Are Romano’s parents driving at 4 AM??

Secondly, it should probably be noted that Romano wasn’t quite as good later on in the game on Sunday as he was Saturday. Neither of his pitches, especially the four-seamer, was especially great at generating swing-and-miss, and though his velocity was up nearly half a tick over his season average, that's an average that's a bit low given his mini-swoon there a week or two back, and clearly lower than the night before.

Still, I think that's to be expected given the circumstance and the fact that we're talking about the MLB leader in appearances among pitchers so far this season. Romano's 13 appearances are two more than any other pitcher to have recorded more than one save this season, and his 12 1/3 innings puts him an inning ahead of anyone else in that group as well. He is the major league leader in saves so far this season, with 11. Milwaukee's Josh Hader is next closest with 10. The next closest among American League pitchers are Raisel Iglesias of the Angels and the Yankees' Aroldis Chapman, both of whom have only six.

Romano's usage is something that the Jays will need to monitor throughout the year, though hopefully once the bats wake up a bit and the competition gets a little lighter there will be a few more games where turning to him isn't necessary. As I noted in my Weekend Up piece, the Jays scored seven or more runs 47 times last season, winning 42 of those games. They're, uh, not quite at that pace just yet. But getting there sure will help in a whole lot of ways, not the least of which is getting Romano some much needed rest. Because it's looking more and more like he very much is, as Atkins says, going to be a big part of some big things for this team going forward.

You gotta love that it's a kid from Markham closing out games with supreme confidence and firepower for these Jays, don't you?

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1. Is it just a coincidence that the Jays' payroll went from $70 million in 2011, the final year of the previous CBA, to $163 million in 2017, the first year of the subsequent one? Dear reader, I submit to you that it is absolutely not.