Starting... NOW
Hell, I’d take back-to-back *regular season* series wins at this point. HEYO!
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It is absolutely infuriating to be watching the stupid Boston stupid fucking Red Sox doing the thing that the Jays need to do—needed to do?—in order to turn their season around. Not to mention the goddamn Baltimore piece-of-shit Orioles.
The only thing more infuriating lately, perhaps, is trying to watch the Blue Jays hit baseballs.
Boston have won 13 straight and now have hold of the third Wild Card spot in the American League. For Baltimore it’s a mere seven straight, as they now find themselves just two games back of Boston, with only Seattle in between.
The Jays exit another listless series loss—this time to the still-surprising AL Central-leading White Sox—at the bottom of the AL East standings, 4.5 games out of the last Wild Card spot, tied with the Astros and Tigers, and needing to jump four other teams to get there.
It’s not over yet, but the math is getting difficult.
This week the Jays host the dreaded Rays, clinging to their AL East lead having lost four straight, for a four-game series. If the Jays were to sweep them it would bring their record up to just 50-53. Next they’ll be off face the red-hot Red Sox this upcoming weekend for three at Fenway Park. And if the Jays were to manage to sweep them somehow, their record would be 53-53.
The Seattle Mariners are at the .500 mark today, at 50-50. They’re a game back of the Red Sox, on the outside looking in.
So… yeah.
It’s a long road back to .500, let alone relevance.
Time for some stray thoughts…
RIP Duane Ward
Now, before I get too caught up filling this post with bad jokes and calling the 2026 Blue Jays terrible, there was of course some sad news over the weekend. “Nostalgia” is a compound word of Greek origin, combining nóstos (”homecoming”) and álgos (”pain”), and unfortunately for the entire Blue Jays community that linguistic detail took on a literal meaning in a very real and tragic way. Duane Ward, the unhittable closer on the Blue Jays’ 1993 team, who for years before had been the team’s electric setup man, passed away while in Toronto to be honoured as a member of the club’s 1992 and ‘93 championships, as part of the team’s ongoing 50th season celebration.
His former teammate, Todd Stottlemyre, who earlier in the weekend had posted a picture of several Blue Jays legends, including Ward, enjoying a reunion dinner on Friday, eloquently eulogized his friend on Sunday.
“We all came together in Toronto for a special celebration and tribute. With my deepest regret I am making this post. We had no idea our Friday night dinner and the photo I posted was going to be the last time we were going to see Duane Ward. From celebration to sadness in a moment. May God rest your soul BlueJay brother and warrior on the mound. You will never be forgotten. Without your contribution there would be no BACK TO BACK. Life is short and we will never know when we will be called. Give someone a hug today and reach out to a loved one and tell them how much you love them. Prayers go out to the Ward family. RIP Brother, until we see you again.”
For those of us who didn’t know him, Ward was simply a beast of a pitcher. The too-unheralded sidekick to “Terminator” Tom Henke. One half of the friendliest-looking pair of absolutely fuck-filthy back-end relievers in baseball history.
Ward did receive down-ballot Cy Young votes in 1991, but it wasn’t until he ascended into Henke’s former spot following the 1992 season that he landed his first All-Star appearance, while also finishing fifth in AL Cy Young voting and receiving MVP votes.
Obviously the way the game was viewed wasn’t the same back then, but to look back on some of his numbers is quite astounding. Over six seasons—six!—from 1988 to 1993 the top three pitchers (min. 500 IP) by K/9 were Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, and Duane Ward.
And among pitchers with at least 200 innings from ‘91 through ‘93, Ward was tops in K/9, K%, ERA, and FIP.
Even if we’re only talking among relievers, that’s an era that included Dennis Eckersley, Rod Beck, Norm Charlton, Lee Smith, and several other guys putting up numbers that wouldn’t look out of place in today’s game.1 And Wardo topped them all. Incredible.
Condolences to his loved ones.
The Bumpy Road Ahead
The Blue Jays have still got six games each left with the Orioles and Yankees, and seven with the Red Sox and Rays. There is still time to reel in some of the teams ahead of them, theoretically. But only this next week’s worth of games will take place before the August 3rd trade deadline. And that will be the most important day of the season, even if the Blue Jays don’t do anything of significance.
These ones are kind of crucial, then. Because they have a huge say in just what the Jays choose to do.
Standing pat is, of course, unlikely—something that Ben Nicholson-Smith rather convincingly argues in a great piece he has up for Sportsnet here on Monday. But what Ben also reminds us in his piece, which looks broadly at the various scenarios on the table for the Jays as the deadline approaches, is that a quiet deadline would not simply be an expression of belief in the current roster to get back into the race.
“Other contenders will add and get better,” he writes, “so standing pat means taking a step back relative to the competition.”
And that’s the rub. To avoid making things significantly harder for themselves, it’s not going to be enough for the Blue Jays to get to the point of simply not being sellers.
As mentioned above, right now, in the American League East, we have two incredibly fucking annoying examples of how this is actually possible—of how a team can turn its fortunes around after looking like dogshit for months without actually doing much at all. It can be done! You can’t say it can’t be done.
But it kinda has to start now, otherwise teams like the fucking Red Sox and Orioles are going to widen the talent gap at the deadline.
I know this whole season has been one long cascading moment in which it’s felt like this team desperately needed to finally get out of first gear, but I think we may have finally arrived there for real. HOLY SHIT BOYS, GET IT TOGETHER!
Quickly…
• Exciting that we finally have a statue that isn’t among the most genuinely embarrassing and shameful on the planet!
• Every time I start thinking about trying to write some big, broad thing about what’s wrong with this team and where this is all going, all I keep coming back to is… this. It’s this:
• Love the fact that John Schneider actually pinch hit Luis Urías for Andrés Giménez in the bottom of the eighth with lefty Bryan Hudson on the mound on Sunday, then slid Ernie Clement over to shortstop in the ninth and kept Urías in the game at second. Hated the way that he didn’t do that on Saturday with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the sixth, but seeing as the Jays were leading in a 1-0 game, maybe sticking with defence was the better move than trying to break it open. Still!
• Not to keep repeating my own tweets, but I’m still good with this one.
• There are other Blue Jays injury updates out there, too. None of which are good. For example, Max Scherzer will pitch for the Bisons on Wednesday as he continues to eye a return to the Blue Jays rotation.
• I mean, does this really count as “selling”?
• Shane Bieber turning himself into a last-minute trade deadline asset could be a story though, huh?
• Important.
• If you are a regular around here, you know I quote Joshua Howsam all the time, and you know I love to appear on my pal Matt Robinson’s Tall Can Audio podcast. So you would, therefore, also know that Josh and Matt doing an episode together will surely be full of great, intelligent Jays talk. Check it out.
• Speaking of podcast stuff! I joined another pal, Scott Belford of High and Inside, during the All-Star break to talk all things Jays and quietly not mention how dark my house is. HAVE A WATCH!
• An outstanding Duane Ward story from Rob Wong via Twitter…
• Substack has recently added a feature where I can show or hide selected parts of my posts to different parts of my audience (i.e. free/non-subscribers or paid subscribers). So, if you’re a paid subscriber, hopefully you’re seeing fewer requests to subscribe in this one. And if you’re a free subscriber or a non-subscriber… could ya maybe consider it?
• Lastly, I KNOW, this team hasn’t earned anybody’s optimism with the way things have gone here, but WHO CARES! LET’S GO ALREADY! DON’T BE A LOSER AND JUST BELIEVE UNTIL THE MATH SAYS YOU CAN’T!
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Rob Dibble only pitched 193 1/3 innings over that span, but would have led in K/9 here, though not ERA or FIP.
So wait, it's not still early? 😭
Don't know why, but this team just crushes my psyche. Probably the let down from losing the World Series bleeding into this year, had they won, I'd still be on that high. I just don't see a team with good enough defense, hitting, or pitching to really do much of anything this year. They are playing like the 5th place team they currently are. Need to lean into a short term sell like they did back in 2024. It's time to move on to 2027. Football camps open in a few weeks; sporting relief is on its way.
RIP Duane Ward. This is far more upsetting to me than the Jays current predicament. Google the man, he was a man of the people. Down to earth, loved by everyone, a true Blue Jay. Nothing but good stories out there on this guy....we'll miss you Duane-o.