Grab a Beverage: Surviving the Blue Jays .500 Rollercoaster w/ Rob Wong

Hello, ladies, gentlemen, and Blue Jays fans of all ages. Welcome to the Jay Bird Watching Podcast, home of the Jays fans' unofficial barroom chat. Our hosts, Craig Borden, Liz McGuire, and Jason Lyons are here to bring you all the words on these birds. We are here to have fun and talk baseball with all of you, so have those questions ready in the chats. Special thanks to our sponsor, Jay Birdy Baseball Company, Canada's baseball brand. Get ready in the comments section to have your voice heard grab a bar stool or your favorite beverage and let's talk some baseball let me hear you jays nation we are live hello and good evening and welcome to the therapeutic couch that has been the jaybird watching podcast i'm your host craig bourne here all things fun all things shenanigans and hopefully some damn wins in the near damn future but as we're here with me as always my buddy jason lyons how things on the west coast my You know, real good. We have been experiencing an insane run of weather out here. It's just been mind-boggling how nice it's been, culminating in twenty-nine degrees yesterday on June first. it's dropped down significantly today still a really nice day but you know that that eight to ten degrees drop just you know is so nice just shorts and a shorts and a hoodie and you know you're eating dinner out in the backyard and so you forget quickly forget some of the trials and tribulations of uh of things in blue jay land but you know there's hope on the horizon with a a kirk sighting in dunedin and a few other cool things Yep. And joining us tonight, we also have of the Toronto Sun, Rob Wong. How are you doing, bud? Welcome to the show. Yeah, glad to be here with you guys. Very much like Jason, enjoying the weather here in Toronto. It's finally gotten warm and it feels summer-like and it feels like baseball weather. So it's a good time. This close. Yeah. Thankfully, we've had a few dome opens at this point and I can't wait to get up there in a couple of weeks and hope and pray that the actual dome is open the days that I'm going to be up there. And I just can't wait to see some more baseball in person. I feel like I can only watch so much minor league baseball here in AAA level and watch none of the days where the Blue Jays happen to be down with the team because I could have seen this weekend. We got Max Scherzer, I think, pitching Friday, potentially Shane Bieber pitching on Saturday. And there's just all sorts of stuff going on in Buffalo right now. Yeah. No, it's awesome to see. I mean, for Blue Jays fans, obviously, everybody's hoping that some of these guys are going to get back sooner rather than later. And the fact that they're going to be appearing in these rehab games and in AAA is a good sign. But a lot of stuff going on in the minor leagues, that's for sure. A lot of people keeping an eye on what this Blue Jays team, some great stories, AAA as well. So, yeah, lots to talk about. What do you add your finger to the pulse to the most, Rob, in that equation? Because like you said, there's even some really good minor league stories with RJ Schreck and some of these guys in Buffalo too. What has been the story that's been keeping your attention? You know what's funny? To be honest, I've been looking down in the low minors, and I feel like every day I'm checking out what's going on in Dunedin with the Dunedin Blue Jays because they're sort of the talk of this minor league system right now. And you've got JoJo Parker, the first-round pick from – Last year, he's playing his first year in pro ball. Same with Blaine Bullard, who was a twelfth round pick last year. Those are sort of the one two punch from the last year's draft. And then you throw in Juan Sanchez, who's this eighteen year old who was playing. I think it was the Dominican Summer League last year as a seventeen year old. And he's just eighteen now and he's part of this three headed monster. And he's just gone off on a huge tear the last couple of weeks. So Dunedin. Yeah, it's kind of funny how every few years there's these guys that just pop up in the low minors of the Blue Jays system that people really find themselves falling in love with. And, of course, we can remember Biggio, Bichette, and Guerrero were those guys a few years ago. You go beyond that. We remember the Lansing Three, Noah Syndergaard, Aaron Sanchez, and Justin Nicolino. If you're someone that's been watching this team for over ten years, and now you've got these three guys. So it's, yeah, interesting. Dunedin is kind of where it's at right now. it really is jason i think it's interesting yeah i just think it's interesting you know obviously making it to the world series in an age where information is is so readily available changes everything but i think it's interesting how much all of the teams are being talked about on twitter on on sportsnet on everything you know like like even when arjun moved up from the j from the seas upwards i mean that was big news and he's been you know he's been doing really well um i think it's incredible to watch some i've been to a couple of canadians games lately and i think it's incredible to watch that team uh really beat up on on a lot of the teams they're playing in this northwest league right now And they're a really good team, top to bottom. Like, it's the most home runs I've ever... Nat Bailey is a massive ballpark for those guys with huge walls. And I was there, was it last Friday? And I think there was four home runs hit. Like, Eugene hit one and the Seas hit three. it's it's fun baseball to watch you know when you go down there in the middle of the day on a friday there's seven thousand people or whatever you know whatever the max holds now and they've redesigned the whole thing to be up to snuff for all the american ballpark so it's a really cool vibe right now um you know i know we keep kicking the can down the road about this mlb team in vancouver and apparently there's some sort of a decision being made in July. But I mean, it's such a pipe dream to even think that, you know, it's Ryan Reynolds money. I hear. Don't worry. He doesn't have he doesn't have billions and billions like Ryan Reynolds. You know, Chip Wilson is a very wealthy guy, but they don't have enough money. The two of them put together to afford a baseball team. It's it's ridiculous. Like if you're able to buy a baseball team, you can buy a lot of stuff like, you know, You know, so it's it's I love the idea. You know, I think we're seeing right now the Olympics out here were kind of a misnomer. Obviously, it hadn't happened in Canada in so long. And I think that the Winter Olympics always drive a lot of people. And it was a really fun time. But I mean, we're even watching reports right now that with the World Cup, like the travel and tourism numbers are way down from what they thought they were going to be. Take games aren't sold out. You know, when there's people who paid upwards of twenty thousand dollars a ticket for games where I can go buy a ticket right now, I can literally go on and buy a lower bowl ticket for a couple of hundred dollars. People are trying to get rid of it. Yeah, our big worry about fever running out of out of hotel rooms apparently is not is not as much of a worry as it was. So I mean, I think it's, you know, when we start to look at some of these things, like, I love the fact that that New Hampshire and Buffalo and all these places take care of their teams like they do. And I love that the the seas are able to be taken care of the way like they do like um we went to the ballpark in everett it's a scary place it's a scary place around it it's a scary ballpark um i wouldn't want to leave my car in that parking lot you know like you hit a home run it lands on the i-five like you know it's it's it's it's a sketchy place and then you go to vancouver and it's tucked in this beautiful park with you know with trees all around it mountains behind it and i guess we're spoiled but uh Yeah, it's nice to see Dunedin and all these levels for the Jays really taking care of business and making these teams good and comfortable for these kids to play, learn, and grow. Yeah, and not to mention seeing Nolan Perry do what he's been doing over the last month for your Vancouver Canadiens. There's no problems there with that. No, no. You've been at one of the games he's pitched yet, Jason? No, I haven't seen him yet. We did watch, I mean, obviously I'm a bit of a nerd, so you always watch. He was standing down and long tossing. So I think he was starting the next game, but, you know, just to watch some of these guys that are so overly impressive, like throwing post to post, you know, at, I would say if I was guessing somewhere in the, mile an hour range maybe more on that distance of a throw and just watching him do his his warm-ups and do his thing you're like yeah that that guy's gonna be a pro like i mean you can just see it you can see it when you when you watch a lot of those guys and um we've been pretty accurate about the guys who've made it out of the seas and upwards in the last i mean you say which was a you know rob you probably don't know this but i saw the first time he pitched here we were like whoa but not like, whoa, this is like Nolan Ryan. Not like straight in the majors, whoa. This guy's going to be pitching in the World Series in a couple of months. Like we were all impressed. And I mean, he was mowing guys down. No one had seen that kind of splitter before, but you know, It's interesting to watch. I assume that we're going to see more of those guys, even though the season is short. I'd like them to mix some more. It'd be nice if we mixed some of the international stuff in. I know there's some talk about some of the games from Mexico and stuff like that coming up and playing them in North America, even doing some showcases where the Blue Jays standouts or the Blue Jays prospects would play in these prospect games around North America. It'd be great to watch. I'd go. Yeah. But that's the fun about baseball, right? Yeah. You got all these great talented players. It doesn't matter where they come from, where you go, or even to your point, where you showcase. So, but on that note, I want to talk obviously about the roller coaster that we have all been. Jason, when we left this show last week, there was a glimpse of five hundred for like point two seconds. And now we're at this point where we're clearly on the downfall to that point. Rob, there has been all sorts of things going on. I think the big catalyst of where we're at right now is that we cannot bring a guy around from second or third base to save our lives. Go ahead and run with that wherever you would like. Yeah, I think really that's the bit, the constant all season long has been the offense and just the struggles for whatever reason. They've shown flashes, they've shown moments, they've had some games where it looks like they're turning a corner and maybe it's a two or three game sample where it's like, okay, this is the offense that we all saw last year in twenty twenty five where they make a ton of contact. They don't strike out, but they're also getting extra base hits and they're driving that guy in with, you know, a runner at third base with less than two outs and so far I mean you could even just go back to last night's game I forget what inning it was they had runners at second and third Dalton bar show comes up and it's a sack fly it's a ground out and then I think it was a strikeout to end the inning and you get one run despite starting that inning with runners at second and third and that's sort of just been what it's like to watch this team this year for whatever reason there's obviously guys that are underperforming whether it's vladdy whether it's george springer uh dalton barton dalton bar show to a certain extent they've clearly been missing addison barger and alejandro kirk in this lineup um but yeah it's just been sort of some guys are able to get going and then at the same time other guys aren't able to get going and those guys seem to be coming up in all the spots where there's runners on base there's just been no consistency uh with this offense so I hope and I feel like it's going to turn around eventually. I think there's too many talented players on this team to not do that. I guess the answer and the question at the same time is when is it going to happen? And we know it's going to happen, but it's hard to predict when it's going to happen. So, yeah, it's just been frustrating, I would say, for a lot of people to watch what's gone on so far. Yeah. Statistically, it's all over the place because they are in the top ten in Major League Baseball in the number of actual hits. But then you look on the flip side that they can't take a walk anymore. And obviously that is a lot in due part to the point that you just mentioned. You're missing at bats from great people with, you know. like alejandro kirk that can take a pitch um as in barger who will take enough walks but obviously mash for some extra hits too but you know you're not getting slouched at bats from yo henrik pinago for example so i'm surprised that the walk numbers are as down as they are which turns us down to having a pretty bummy ops for the major league baseball rankings anyways but it's There's got to be something there. You can't keep raking in all those hits and then not come up with something. It just strikes me a bad luck or just, oh my God, what the hell is going on? Yeah, it's hard to put your finger as to why. I mean, I think people... maybe not so much this year i have seen some of it online but i'm sure you guys have seen it as well in years past you blame the hitting coach you blame all the coaches for why these guys aren't performing it's all david popkin's fault uh why vladdy and george springer and we know that's you know generally not the case the the players are the ones that have to go out there uh and perform it's not like he's you know telling them when to swing or you know all these kind of different things that happen he's you know trying to do his best and get these guys uh to be better offensively but as we kind of touched on I think part of it is just the personnel and as good as yo Hendrick pinango has been he's not a guy that's gonna draw a walk very often same with Jesus Sanchez we know Ernie Clement's not going to draw blocks we know Andres Jimenez isn't going to draw walks I think I looked at it yesterday there's only you know there's like four or five guys that are above an average walk rate which is around eight percent this year and I think it's Brandon Valenzuela Vladdy uh george springer might be there as well and there's one other person i'm missing but everybody else is below average um and we know how uh important walks are as far as to keep rallies going and make sure you're not you know generating ground outs that don't do anything or fly outs that don't do anything so it's just a combination of different things but again it sort of feels crazy to say that it's going to turn around eventually but i think we watched this game enough to know that eventually it will you can't continue to keep getting hits and putting runners in position to score and not drive them in eventually it's just nobody knows when that's going to happen it might happen tonight and we might be watching this game in an hour's time and they've got you know they're four for five with runners in scoring position or something and they put up six runs and everybody feels a lot more confident in Definitely a lot better than over six last night. Yeah. So go ahead, Jason. I think as well, like, you know, and this is interesting because this is something that we've been talking about on my son's PBL team is that they when they're getting into these situations and these are, you know, fourteen and fifteen year old kids that are realizing that their ego is getting in the way. They in some cases they want to be the hero so badly or they want to make sure they do something that's impactful so badly rather than just taking a walk which can be super impactful um you know I think that that that sometimes plagues some of the guys that are on the Jays even though they even though they play it pretty cool like you know there doesn't seem to be a lot of egos on the team I mean Vladdy has a big ego for I mean he does I mean he you can't be successful in sports like that and not have some level of ego where you think to yourself, well, I mean, you know, I should be able to hit that ninety two mile an hour fastball out of here. And I'm not I'm striking out on it or I'm rolling over on it. And I mean, you know, not everybody hits a thousand all year long. I mean, it's it's going to be you know, you're going to have these types of things. I just I feel like the Jays, you know, and I know there was some discussion about this and I know Luke's is leading off today. But, you know, is it time for Springer to drop down the lineup until he starts really ringing the ball out and not just hitting long fly balls to the, you know, to the warning track? and starting to get himself on base and the other thing too is is the similarly again to the twins we don't steal we don't but we don't try and manufacture anything we just roll forward and um a lot of times when you're not causing any kind of chaos or not you know challenging the other team that's where you run into those problems with runners on second and third nobody out you just can't move them around right like i mean You know, frustrating, but it's, you know, they all go through it. But like you said, Rob, I mean, you hope that it sort of ends soon. And, you know, going into June, July and August, we're, you know, we're talking about brighter days. But, I mean, this is a tough league now to play. And we're seeing, you know, bottom feeder teams rocketing up. We're seeing good teams, you know, hover and excel. And, you know, it is what it is for right now. I think we just got a hit, though. hitting definitely cures all just like luke's let off with a hit there we go so there you go i'm just going to say as we finally get the grant holmes already correct me if i'm wrong last year when grant holmes pitched against us didn't he like just completely dominate through us it just feels like it's stuck in my memory think you have a better memory than i do yeah that sounds about right yeah he's uh it's funny just looking at him he's like one of those old school guys from the eighties and nineties with the long hair and the facial hair like he's a he's a throwback looking kind of he has mark waller's written all over it to me just wearing that uniform basically it's just that was the one that stuck out to me yeah he is just he's been an animal this year yeah i mean the braids are a whole sort of uh real good thing that we're running into too yeah Jason, it might sound like you had a point to go there. I'm sorry. I was just saying the Braves have been real good all the way around. I mean, you can't take a lot of shine off the Braves this year. So, I mean, you know, they can march pretty much anybody out from their rotation. They're doing well. I mean, they're crushing the baseball. You know, and they haven't been great for a lot. I mean, they've been good. They haven't been great for the last couple of years. So they've been kind of laying in the weeds a little thing, building up their pitching and making some moves that sort of got them into this position. But, you know, only time will tell health, the health gods, if they'll stick with a team like Atlanta, then they can do something. But if they don't, if guys start dropping, They're in big trouble. You mean like some other Blue Jade-like level team that can't keep people off the aisle? I think we have a team that might be better in the Orioles' opening day roster last year because of how many people they had on our aisle as well. Another hit in a row, though. Blue Jade's got runners on first and second right now. There we go. Hopefully, I usually don't talk about the live game too much at this point, but there's something cooking. It's Rob. He's bringing the hits. Yeah, we got some good luck. We had Shane Told's effect from Silverstein a couple weeks ago where I was like, hey, look, we're eleven and five since Shane came on the show. So, but Rob, there are some good things. Obviously, there's plenty of bad things. What are you looking forward to at the moment with this team that could get us to that next level? Because there's a lot of good things coming, I think. Yeah, I mean, we touched on it at the start just as far as the injuries go and getting some of these pitchers back. I mean, that's sort of been an oft-discussed scenario and situation with the Jays right now, just how much their bullpen has been used. I think people have been throwing that stat out there recently as far as the most used relievers in all of baseball this year. The Blue Jays have like five of the top ten or something crazy. as far as appearances go this year. And they've been a huge reason why the Blue Jays have been able to stay in the mix here and, you know, hold on to a playoff spot before yesterday's loss. So, you know, without those guys, without Farland and Rodgers, and I know Jeff Hoffman had his blow up on Saturday but before that he had been pitching well and Mason Blue Hardy without these guys who knows how much further down in the standings the Blue Jays would be but getting Shane Bieber back and getting even Max Scherzer back to be able to give you some innings and we know Dylan Cease is hurt right now but just having a starter that you can rely on to go five or six innings just makes a huge difference as good as Spencer Miles has been The fact that he can only really go three to four innings every five days, it makes it challenging for the bullpen, knowing that it's going to be essentially a bullpen day. The day before, a bunch of those leverage guys need to be used, and then you're really stressing them out the day that Spencer Miles is used. So it's not an ideal situation that the Blue Jays find themselves in there, but the fact that they're getting healthier players um is going to be big but aside from that it's you know it's really the offense i think every game every game i'm not too concerned about the pitching uh you know some days you're gonna have good outings and some days you're not but the offense is really just a wild card you just do not know what you're gonna get right now on a game-to-game basis and in a bad to a bad basis if we're for being just, just to be this jerk right now. Is it too early to put my rally cap on where the base is loaded with nobody out Jason, a little bit or with Jesus Sanchez at the plate with my luck, another kid, I'll throw a baseball at him while he's hitting, you know, can we quickly talk about that for one second? So I, I appreciate the fact that that probably stunned him and he wasn't expecting that, but For you to leave the game is the most thirteen-ply thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Just steal a Shorzyism. I mean, I don't care how hard that kid, I don't care if a man threw that baseball. If that hits you in the wrist and you're just like, okay, yeah, I'm okay to play. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it plays into that, you know, narrative of, you know, hockey players finish games with broken legs. And, you know, this guy can't take an underhand throw from a twelve-year-old that clips him on the outside, on the inside of it, like the softest part. You're like, come on, man. I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at what you were laughing at. We just scored a run in the most Blue Jays' recent way. We got a run in on a double play. That's the way things go. That is the way things are going for this team right now. Get them when you can get them. yeah not even a blue pit or a you know Fifteen Chopper through the hole it's just a double play to score a run at this point but it's funny I'm happy Jason brought up the Jesus Sanchez thing because I did feel that in the moment too uh I know everybody was watching it on that really pixelated replay so you couldn't really get a good look at it nine thousand miles away cameras and the highest resolution but uh I guess they didn't get this a real film somebody on his phone yeah It was hard to see, but I was yeah, I felt similar to Jason. Like I was kind of shocked in the moment thinking that's what knocks you out of the game. And who knows, like what he was feeling, maybe he did feel something wasn't right. And, you know, when he's moving his wrist. But the fact that he sort of removed himself out of the game immediately was shocking. Luckily, nothing has happened. bad that you know he didn't have to go on the aisle or anything but I honestly can't remember the last time I saw anything like that that may have been the first time that's ever happened to be honest in a Major League Baseball game stuff gets thrown on the field from angry fans that are usually trying to injure players but I can't ever remember a fan supposedly thinking that they were trying to play catch with a guy in the middle of a game it was yeah truly truly bizarre And the thing that blew my mind on, too, is, of course, the after the fact. Because, you know, obvious initial reaction. Everybody and their brother thought it was like some jackass fan threw it at a, you know, and it was somebody drunk, whatever it might be. It could have been just somebody that had to show up at the ballpark, whatever it might be. But then we find out in the after the fact that it was a child or a twelve-year-old, you know, little leaguer or whatever that threw it. And the only thing that popped into my head is, did you have Henry Rowan Garner as the one that was just lightening up the, you know, my tendons are too tight and he throws the ball. Yeah. Did you guys see Kevin Pillar's whole thing on this? He did a whole thing where they were like, you've got to bring this kid in. You've got to treat him like king for a day. Where was that? Where did it happen? In... Baltimore? In Baltimore. Yeah, bring this kid in. Get him a jersey. Like, give him the King's treatment, you know, da-da-da-da-da, all this stuff. And, I mean, I think it's funny because he was doing it, obviously, in jest. But they kept showing clips of, you know, Rosenberger where he's sitting there like this and he just rips it across the... I still call my kids Rosenberger, and it makes me laugh every time I do it. Rosenberger's great, Ruhlenfurter, Gardenhoser. Gardenhoser. My favorite thing about that whole, obviously, Rookie of the Year reference here is that after we started that trend, a bunch of people were goofing around with it on TikTok and Twitter and everything, talking about Rookie of the Year, and the kid's got to be Henry Rowan Gardner, right? Somebody had the balls after that to say, all Jesus Sanchez needs is some hot ice and we'll be all set. Yeah. classic perfect oh so but yeah it was a i have never seen anything like that on a major league baseball field and i think that just shows the crazy that once you get in between the lines you have no idea and this is how much control you really have of what's going on in a baseball game Just saying. Oh, and this just in, in case you're, you're not watching at home, Alejandro Kirk hit a home run in his first game rehabbing. I think it just happened. It must've just happened as it started at seven, I believe. So there you go. Hot off the presses. He's looking, he's looking lean. took it out to deep center the maple beef strikes in buffalo huh there it is but no i i we were talking about injuries and all that stuff i still think that he he is the biggest catalyst to this whole team going in the right direction and what you get out of alejandro i don't disagree i think he's i think he's very important and needs to come back as quickly as possible Yeah, just to have that middle-of-the-order bat is just so huge for this team. And I know even at the start of the season, he wasn't off to a great start. A lot of guys weren't, but it's early on in the year. And as great as Brandon Valenzuela has been behind the plate, and even at bat, he's had some really good offensive numbers that he's put up so far. They're batting him ninth. I'm kind of stunned, to be honest, still, that they're hitting him so low in the lineup when guys like Andres Jimenez have really been struggling for... weeks upon weeks upon weeks now. I would have thought Valenzuela would have gotten an opportunity higher up in the lineup. But when Kirk comes back and then having him there, whether it's four or five, somewhere higher up in the order, just really sets the lineup into place a lot better and has guys, I think, in better positions to succeed where, no offense to Ernie Clements, probably should not be hitting fifth on any given day, like as good as he has been at times this year with all the doubles he's hitting. I think he's better suited to be batting in the bottom third of the order. Yeah, I totally agree. He makes too good a contact to, you know, not. Look at the balls he pulls off of his shoes. You're telling me he's not going to get an extra hit if he's up in the two spot or something? I agree. So, speaking of hot off the presses, this swing looked really good when I found it. Booyah. Taco. Are you kidding me? Looks like turkey to me. Yeah, it looks fine. Running the bases like it. Look at him, just like a champ. That's too much fun. Yeah. Exciting. Yeah, I feel like he is so key to get back, and I think that he will be, you know, he might even be that lightning rod that we're, you know, so desperately looking for to really just start steering the ship in the right direction. It's amazing how much impact one player can have sometimes, but I feel like he will have that impact coming back. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I know, sorry if I'm stealing a question from you, Craig, as you step away, but I'll ask you, Jason, I'm curious, you know, a lot of conversation about who is the backup catcher when Kirk is ready to return. Are you on Team Valenzuela or are you on Team Heinemann? This has been a tough one because we've talked about this before. I really appreciate Heideman's experience. I really appreciate what he's done for the team. I think that he is invaluable. If there's any way that you can keep him up in a roster spot as a DH, even though he is not a very good hitter, you know i think you try and do that but valenzuela is the future i mean he's a great catcher he's got a good arm he needs to learn um you know from kirk he needs to be up playing um i feel like he's sort of hit that that catcher's ceiling where if he goes back down he won't be improving in in buffalo even though be playing a lot um I think he needs to be around the big team. He needs to see how fast things move. He can DH a bunch. I love his athleticism. And he gives Kirky the availability to slowly come back from this injury and make sure that he's a hundred percent for the dog days of summer. I mean, I like Tyler Heinemann, but I just feel like the game has sort of passed his speed level by. Yeah, I think that's totally fair. I think I'm on the same wavelength as you guys, that as great as Tyler Heinemann has been at times for this team, and last year was the majority of it, they've shown in the past they're not afraid to step away from this guy. I think they've uh waved them like three different times um and uh if Valenzuela wasn't doing what he was doing I think you could make a better case for keeping Heineman um but I'm you know the fact that he looks so good at the major league level uh not that he doesn't have anything to learn anymore it's not as if he's a finished product but feels like he's learning quite a bit here at the major league level and he's picking it up very quickly um so you know this team is they need to put the best team out there and i think he's the one of the best players in this organization right now i agree yeah you talk about what you get out of the fact that he even if let's say he is in the game and you're in the ninth inning you're home you need something he's a switcher with some pop you're going to be able to put him in and get something out of it as much as you don't usually want to do that with having your backup catcher all of a sudden in the game as a you know pinch hitter or whatever had to be at him out but Like you said, Rob, you got to win and you need to start winning now. And he is the win now candidate as far as this team is concerned. And I think he's going to learn plenty being in a platoon with Kirk. You talk about saving Kirk even a little bit more, too. You know, if this becomes more of a sixty forty split instead of a traditional backup catcher where they're catching twice a week or something where it's closer to seventy thirty. Right. It could be the difference between keeping Kirky healthy for the rest of the season with whatever he's got going on. Or easing it back into it to just make sure that that thumb doesn't fall off. And I mean, if you shop Heidemann and nobody seems to be interested, I mean, maybe this is the time that you ask him if he wants to move into a, you know, into some sort of a coaching position and not finish out the year. Or, you know, I mean, you know, could he go to Buffalo? Yeah. I mean, you know, could he go to Buffalo? Sure. He could go to Buffalo, but I mean, I don't know if a guy of his age and his, you know, vintage would wants to do that where, you know, potentially you could say, Hey, you know, we'll, we'd like to keep you on, but just as an advisor or a coach or whatever, and, and allow him to do that. I, again, I feel like he's an asset. I just don't think he's an asset on the field anymore. And not when you have Valenzuela doing any level of what he's doing. He's looking like he could be, if he continues on this trend, rookie of the year candidate. So the rookie pickings is a little slim this year, unless you're Trey, a savage, it seems like, but it's what it is. But I do think that that's going to be the catalyst. I really do. Kirky is just so key, I think, to the leadership in this clubhouse, not just what he does on the field. And we saw it back in the day with Bautista and Martin and everybody. If you are solid up the middle, things go well. And right now you have a, quote-unquote backup in there all the time at catcher we've been you know missing Jimenez for certain games at shortstop Varsha missed some time that middle has been a little fluxy and then so is the corner outfield too so now that things are finally starting to fall into place maybe we're at where we're at but Good deal. But to that point, Rob, you mentioned somebody I wanted to talk about. There's two guys, the guy on the mound, Patrick Corbin tonight and Spencer miles that think of where in the world we would be if those two did not step up. Holy Patrick Corbin. Good gravy. Yeah. Who would have thought? Well, and how many teams are probably kicking themselves in the ass? They didn't give this guy any kind of, of runway. Like, Yeah, well, look, Patrick Corbin, they sent him for a million bucks. I'm not sure how many better contracts have been handed out in Major League Baseball this year. Like he has just returned it tenfold to the Blue Jays since they brought him in here. And as you guys have touched on, I mean, who would have thought June third, we're talking about how Patrick Corbin and Spencer Miles are two guys that have sort of saved the Blue Jays season in a lot of ways. Like, you know, we talked about literally the latest signing you could have in a Rule Five draft pick. Yeah, just unbelievable. And I remember just back in spring training when Spencer Miles and, if people remember, Angel Bastardo were the two guys battling for the final spot in the bullpen. And people were wondering, heading into the final week, is it going to be Miles? Is it going to be Bastardo? And who knows? Had the Blue Jays picked Bastardo, maybe they wouldn't be where they are. They ended up picking... the right guy and now you've seen what spencer miles can do i know his last outing wasn't great it's not going to be great every time out people have to remember this is a guy that's barely pitched above i think it's a ball right this is his first foray into anything higher than than double a so there's going to be some hiccups along the way but now you wonder what they've been able to do with him Could this guy be a long-term option down the road as maybe a back-end rotation piece? Because we know heading into next year, Kevin Gossman doesn't have a contract. Jose Barrios is gone for the year with Tommy John surgery. So you're left with Dylan Cease, Treya Savage, and what after that? Like, we really don't know because everybody else is... uh without a contract or hurt so you know could spencer miles back for opening day either as the quote-unquote next guy right so cody pons isn't probably going to be back until you know maybe may or june depending on how his recovery goes it uh could be uh uh a ways till we uh see him but uh i hope you enjoyed the new star wars movie in his downtime that's Yeah. But they have openings, right? They need options in the rotation, and maybe Miles could be that guy. But, yeah, without him, who knows where they'd be. Yeah. And that's the one thing that you mentioned. The bullpen is depleted by the fact that you know you're going to basically only get three or four innings from Spencer Miles. That has been a nice little pairing of late with Adam Mako, who I have been quite impressed with, with what he's been able to do out of the bullpen. And I'm sitting here going, man, we had how many lefties in this bullpen over the first month here? We couldn't get anybody to throw the damn ball across the plate. Mako's kind of all of a sudden made a name for himself in the back of that bullpen for doing what he's been doing. What's your thoughts? Yeah, he's looked really good considering, you know, he made his major league debut in New York at Yankee Stadium. I was kind of curious to see how he would fare. But I guess when you get thrown under the fire like that, you get some confidence when you come out of it unscathed. I know for Canada, you pitch really well at the World Baseball Classic, got some major leaguers out in that one as well. So it's been cool to see like the lefty options that the Blue Jays have brought in this year. We remember Brendan Little and how bad that went at the start of the year. And Joe Mantiply, another guy that nobody really thought much of. And he came in and gave them a bunch of good innings before he hurt himself. And then Adam Macko now has filled in here as another lefty option and has looked really good. I feel pretty solid about it because I know when Brendan Little was struggling and he had to go down, people were thinking, who's going to step up as that second lefty and Mantiply held it down for a little bit. And now Macko's here. So you've got some options, you know, to go alongside Mason Flewharty, which is a good sign for this bullpen. And Flewharty and Brayden Fisher have been just lights out for the most part. It seems they – I just can't say enough. Watching Fisher, I don't know if he turned it up a notch last night or what, but that inning he pitched was very impressive to me last night. He'd already been doing so good, and then all of a sudden, like I said, taking it to the school for the Atlanta Braves lineup here is the best record in baseball right now. It really spelled some – success for me and i hope it built his confidence up even a little bit more which he should have all of it in the world at the moment with a yeah what two point four seven era i think i saw right now it's interesting i mean when you look at it like they're talking about mason miller and some other relievers in the i mean varland has better numbers than than all of them and you know talking about someone who's maybe you know your unexpected hero i mean i feel like it has to be him like i mean the bullpen has been okay i mean i guess you know to watch trevor hoffman get drawn out and flogged a few more times i mean and now it's got another point where you mean but you know to watch even like sid and some of the big canadian broadcasters now are really letting them have it um you know I think Liz beat them to it personally. The bass beaver idea that she called and made up a literal nickname because beavers like to make sure they dam up all the water and Jeff Hoffman likes to make sure the bases are completely full before he tries to dam it up. Oh, it's so funny. But at the end of the day, I do think there's still plenty of positives with this team. We know what's coming. You're going to get some pop with Barger, Kirk, and whatnot coming back to this lineup. We have found some key role players that we would have never in a million years have found for this team unless some of the right things or wrong things happened like we did when we were talking about Patrick Corbin. If we didn't start with no rotation depth, guess what we wouldn't have grabbed? Patrick Corbin. You'd look at what we randomly stumbled into with Spencer Miles, what we've seen with Brandon Valenzuela, who honestly just missed another home run to the deepest cavernous, most parts of the Braves' ballpark. Those are storylines we wouldn't be talking about if this was all as it was drawn up. Cody Ponce would still be in this rotation, all these things. Like I said, I know it seems like I'm grasping at straws, but the confidence that I have is at least there's still a chance, knowing that we have filled in some of these gaps with some key people that can be on this roster. And then hopefully we get the Bieber seat. Well, Cease is going to be an easy win back, it sounds like. But get Max Scherzer, Shane Bieber, and this rotation built up the way it was supposed to. Get that offense back. There is something to the pudding and the puzzle piece here. Not saying I'm trying to lead too far into the tea leaves, but here it is. Is there something that is a storyline that either of you have seen that you're diving to have into at this point before we have a little fun here to end the show in the last twenty minutes? Holy, I'm just blazed by it. Much fun, man. That's what happens in a barroom chat. Yeah, go ahead, Jason. I'm excited about a number of I mean, I'd like to see Addison Barger get back. I want to see what he can do and what he can help, you know, to provide. Obviously, I'm excited to get Kirk back. I think he adds a stability that the team needs right now. You know, I'm interested to see how some of these guys' seasons are going to progress. Like Nathan Lukes, like the guy just seems like every time you give him more work, he just gets better and better and better. For a guy that we never really heard of, you know, up to last year, it amazes me every single time, you know, like, he comes back from injury and goes what three for four and then the next night he's two for four and then you know like i mean he's a he's a really good baseball player and we're very lucky to have him you know and so i mean i think that the the story lines which are great are are basically all internal i mean the one that i'm sort of um interested in is um i'm trying to think of the mariners picture with all the dreads that's sort of on the outs um uh oh luis castillo luis castillo but i feel like he could be a real snipe coming up here i he doesn't want to be in in um seattle anymore he's on the outs they're not you know they're not leveraging him they're not pitching him as much they have a really good rotation and he's not really part of it um I feel like our team that's also went on a crazy run lately too. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, could he be a piece of the puzzle moving, you know, like does he, is he our burritos replacement or is he, you know, does he fit into the, because he's still a very good pitcher and it would behoove the Jays to find out what the Mariners want for him. Yeah. There's a lot of guys in that category. The blue Jays should be knocking on the door for a eventual trade deadline. Crazy. Go ahead and hit your item, Rob. Yeah, I was going to say sort of on the pessimistic side, it's what's going to happen here with George Springer. You know, he's not had the best season. compared to what he did a year ago. And I don't think anybody would have expected him to repeat what he did last year heading into this season. But I don't didn't think I was expecting a drop off like this where he has at times just look like a thirty six year old guy that's caught up. You know, Father Time has caught up to the similar like he did look in twenty twenty four when I think a lot of people are ready to move on from him i know he's got the broken toe and that's probably playing a factor into what's going on right now with his struggles but if he keeps struggling at what point does he get dropped in down in the lineup and at what point does maybe the playing time get reduced because I just don't think you can keep throwing a guy out there that's having some of the at-bats that he's having right now. And when this team does get healthier and when you've got some guys like Hendrik Pignango who are performing and not saying he's going to keep doing this, but does John Schneider have some difficult decisions to make if George Springer continues to go on this slide like he's currently going on? So that's sort of one of the storylines I'm Just keeping an eye on. I'm not making a prediction one way or another that, you know, Springer's done and this is it. But it's, you know, starting to pique my interest at least as far as what may happen here because it's not looked great for a large chunk of the season. Yeah, to your point about that, your fortune telling skills in this group here are not terribly unnoticed because I thought the same thing as when you get Barger back, you now have Nathan Lucas back. You have to find bats for Pinago here because he's just been one of the only guys hitting and watching him hit that ball in Baltimore the other day after he came in for Jesus Sanchez from the Henry Rowan Gardner incident. That ball was one of the few balls in baseball history that made all the way out to Utah Street. That is a long, long home run. I've walked from that street to my seats. It is not a short ball. That is a long damn hit ball. You've got to be able to find, to your point, Rob, if he's not having the best at-bats, some of the guys that are hot have to be able to take DH spots or outfield spots or whatever might be at that point for where Springer needed to be if he's not figuring it out. I sure as hell hope to knock on desk here and he finds some relevant form of what he had last year, and we continue to have that. But I'm not upset about seeing Nathan Lucas in the leadoff spot tonight. I think he's an igniter. I think he's one of those guys – that you need at the top of the lineup. So I agree enough. I think the hard part with Springer is, you know, not unlike, you know, Heinemann. It's it's really great to have know to have him in the dugout you know with him sticking his tongue out at bassett and just having fun with the boys and all the rest of that stuff but i mean it's i think you know unless he can start to find it soon i feel like this might be a bit of a swan song for him um the broken toe might just be that catalyst that he just can't get past he just can't put enough pressure onto the foot anymore to hit balls out i mean we've watched him or at least it's ruining this season yeah he can still hit the ball to the outfield but lots of us i can probably hit the ball to the outfield You know what I mean? Like, I mean, long, long, loud outs are still long, loud outs over and over and over again. And he doesn't have the speed anymore to, if he, if he hits something to leg it out, he doesn't have the speed anymore to steal bases. So, I mean, his, his limited, you know, the limited availability of what he can and can't do starts to really get, get, you know, the window gets small. So yeah. I love the guy. You know, I think that I think that he's done a lot for the Jays. And, you know, if they're able to keep them around, the rosters aren't huge. But, you know, as they expand them, maybe they can keep them and he can he can have a clutch hit every now and again. But I'd rather see the other guys playing, to be frank with you. Yeah. So Blue Jays fans, I see about a hundred of you in the chat. I can't believe that one didn't spark all kinds of conversation. So we greatly appreciate y'all listening in. I think there's issues with Twitter today. I was on Twitter earlier or X or whatever the hell they call it now. And there was a friend of mine sent me a message and I was like, I don't see it. And then we went back in and it was like, I send it to you. We get a few hundred people coming in. I was going to say, sorry to butt in here, guys, but I got some breaking news. I don't know if you guys just saw it. Arden Swelling of Sportsnet, my old buddy from Sportsnet. Blue Jays acquired Simeon Woods Richardson from the Twins. Really? I called it. Cash consideration. He is back where he belongs. Simeon Woods Richardson back in the Blue Jays. That means we officially won the trade then, right? Yeah. So when I saw he got released, Rob, last week, I'm like, the Blue Jays are missing that starting pitcher. He always had all the talent in the world when I saw him in the minor leagues when he was down in Dunedin and stuff like that. So that's very exciting. I love that news. And I'm glad you brought that up because that's a really cool move. And you got to love a guy who goes, the back of his jersey goes shoulder to shoulder. You know, like anytime you can get a name that touches both, you know. it starts curving around the shoulder yeah love a curve love it love a curve on the back crow armstrong but swr um he's shown some potential at the major league level not this year but like i said to that it's about getting the right coach a lot of times and if he's got the right will and try some new things and tweak this or that maybe pete walker has the right you know peace to it or maybe somebody down in buffalo if that's where he ends up but i they had the dfam so i'm assuming he's out of options at this point but so i'm assuming that means he's going to be in a major league uniform rob's in the very new future with that news you're bringing Yeah, and look, not saying it's going to work. We've seen it multiple times where the Blue Jays have tried to bring veteran pitchers in and it hasn't worked. I think of a guy like Spencer Turnbull last year, who was pretty wretched in his short amount of time with the Blue Jays. But, you know, they've been able to find some diamonds in the rough and maybe they see something in Samuel Woods Richardson that they think they can tweak and turn him into a consistent major league player. pitchers so it's worth the gamble like at the very least it's worth the gamble you're just giving up cash considerations you're not giving up any prospects of consequence so i like it we'll see what happens Yep, roll the dice, see what happens. And to that point, I'm wondering how well that lines up with the spot we have coming up for either Cease or Scherzer's spot for those innings that we've been having to eat up for those two bullpen days. But that'd be very intriguing to watch at least somebody that is stretched out. Yeah, it'd be also nice to not have the word bullpen day involved in the conversation moving forward. A tentative starter. That's really cool. Good deal. So, Rob, we have our game that we end the show with here, but I want to make sure we get a chance to talk about one of your other passions that I've been following very much so on your Twitter account, at least. And it's clearly you have the same love of all things cardboard that I might have, or at least Blue Jays cardboard. So what got you into the hobby? What do you like collecting? And what's maybe the weirdest card in your collections? Oh, man, look, how much time do we have here? Because I've been collecting since I was a kid. I was born in eighty six. So I've been collecting since the nineties. I took some years off through high school and some years. I'm sure a lot of people have similar stories. But I think, you know, the first baseball cards I ever had as a kid were like Donner us and diamond Kings and upper deck and all that stuff. So I go way, way back with regards to that. But, uh, yeah, I would say the last, you know, five, six years, probably a lot of people as well, since COVID got back into the hobby and, uh, just enjoy it so much. And the way I kind of treat it is. For my collecting and my PC, I treat it as sort of a scrapbook of my life and my career. For the longest time, I used to just collect players that I like, but now I've sort of shifted it to a focus where I collect cards of maybe some athletes that I've gotten the chance to interview or games that I've been able to attend. I know Liz wasn't here. She has her own baseball card, of course, the Tops Now card. So because of Topps now, I've been able to add a lot of different cards of games that I've attended and things of that nature. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's just a nice little side hobby. It can get expensive at times if you let it. But I would say, geez, what's the weirdest card that I have in my collection? Do you have like a Billy Ripken FF or something? Yeah, I mean, I think I used to years ago. I used to have a Billy Ripken. But, you know, it's funny. I think about it's not baseball cards, but do you guys are you guys into hockey cards at all? Yeah, I use sports. Yeah. Do you guys remember the be a player cards? Yeah. The be a player set. So they were sort of the players association cards and they were unlicensed. So you didn't have players in their jerseys, but you had them in like just everyday life settings. Like guys are just like hanging out, you know, in their car or they're like outside doing, I don't know, yard work. That might be an exaggeration, but they were very bizarre. Yeah. Oh, there you go. They're very bizarre, sort of candid cards. And I remember those a lot, the be a player cards from back in the day. I think there's some baseball card sets that are similar to that as well. Donnera Studio back in the day, where it sort of looked like if you were to have family portraits, where you get your family together at a photo studio and you have those weird backgrounds. I remember Major League Baseball did cards like that years ago. So I'll have to think about it with the nineteen ninety two. We just went through. I found out somebody with I was down in Dunedin and they we were at a card shop with my nephew and a bunch of people. And I'm like, you know what? Look, he just had a pile of nineteen ninety two top stadium club brand new boxes in the wax and everything. I'm like, how much you got for these? He goes twenty five a piece. I'm like sold. I stand in fifty bucks. Got a series one, a series two. I sat there with my nephew and my family, my wife and everybody. We were ripping packs for like an hour because there was eighty four packs between the two houses. So and I'm like, I told my nephew, Peter, he's about eight years old and I'm like, we're hunting for Ken Griffey Junior cards. That was the only card that was in that whole thing. The amount of weird we saw on that set. There was this Ruben Sierra card that he literally looks like he's got the Bill Cosby sweater on. And he's just chilling at the beach for some reason. Because why wouldn't you wear that sweater to the beach? Stadium Club is my favorite. is my favorite uh product my favorite set uh i think there's like a really weird nolan ryan one famously it's like him on a horse or something yep so uh yeah the stadium club cards are awesome the photography is is amazing so yeah glad you brought that up it's definitely my favorite classic my favorite still is the pavel burry rookie rocky rookie where he's in rollerblades oh yeah like really weird like that's a really weird card i have a buddy who has it and every time i look at it it's just disturbing he's got this weird look on his face and short shorts and a like a k-way jacket and like pink i'm getting like reno nine one one oh it's too much it's just way too much you can spend you can spend way too much time looking at nineties cards like they just don't make them like they used to no they don't they don't no not very much a passion of mine is also doing all things cardboard and goofing around like that including the uh second show i'm trying to start up and well fourth actually but that's besides the point um two blue jays ones and all things nerdy and collecting and now why not throw sports cards into it so but yeah nathan lucas hits a bomb blue jays actually had two to one at this point in the ball game so but we got to play our picks to click to end the game like we always do here so i have the clipboard of who we got last week every week rob what we do on this show is an olive kind of like the um chicago white socks and whatnot with uh hawk harrelson we pick who is going to be the best performing blue jay between this week and when we perform our next show from next wednesday and we have the picks here who we had and it's going to be your turn to you know here to pick who had the best week for our past week so the names we had last week were jesus sanchez george springer ernie clement and kazuma akamado those before you had to pick who was the quote-unquote best one from today to last wednesday There's no wrong answer. There's no wrong answer. Well, just off the top of my head, I mean, yeah, I think, well, we talked about George Springer not being the best right now, so I don't think I can go that way. Jesus Sanchez is probably the guy. I think he's been really strong as far as his performance in the last couple of weeks before that kid pelted him in the hand and derailed his season. That's Jesus Sanchez. Yeah, I'll go with him. We're going to nail it down to that point exactly, the Rowan Gardner incident in right field. You did. Yes. There you go. So, Jason, you have a commanding lead with four wins so far this year. Got two for the guest spot, two for me, and one for Liz, which is the reigning champion from last year. So, Rob, you're our guest. Hold on. Rob has to know this before he picks. Liz cheats at this game. She picks two players last year. Two years ago, she picked Bichette and Vladdy every single week back and forth because you can't pick the same one twice. And that's how she wins. Unfortunately, that's bad. You've been betting on all things Vladdy so far. Craig's picking guys from Dunedin that might come up. Meyer League guy, man. Meyer League guru from my writing days. So on that point, Jason, you are the victor at the moment. And as you are more than well aware, we let the victor go first here because why not? Well, I'm going to go into Liz's bag of tricks because this has been working for me all year so far. And I'm going to pick Nathan Luke's. I was hoping you were going to pick Vladdy and rub some good luck on that. No, I'm not going to do that. All right. So Nathan Luke's is in the kitchen for you. Who's cooking for you over the next week, Rob, for our guest spot? All right. You know, it's funny. We didn't talk about him too much. And I think it's probably the contrarian in me. And I know he's public enemy number one at the moment in Blue Jays land. I'm going to say Jeff Hoffman. Let's give Jeff Hoffman a little bit of good luck and say that he gets over what happened on Saturday and he helps the Blue Jays win some games over the next little bit here. You know what that is? That's nuts. So I feel like I'm jinxing everybody I ever pick. So I'm going to take Vladdy and hope this is two negatives turn into a positive and go from there. And then we have to pick somebody for Liz because she is having internet issues on her fishing trip. So she is not able to join us this evening. but she was trying so i'm not going to give her the full penalty let's go with what she would normally do so she normally bases everything on looks so let's give her valenzuela there you go i like that one anyway and actually that is the first time he has been picked on this board so he almost took one for a rides earlier so that's a good handsome lance So the last order of business here, Rob, we always have the shameless self-promoting time for all of our guests. Tell everybody where they can find you. Anything you want to talk about, the microphone is fully yours. Well, first off, I appreciate you guys having me on. It's been a blast. The hour has flown by, which is pretty crazy, but that's usually the case when... when you're having fun talking baseball, always love talking ball. You can follow me on Twitter at Rob long three, four. I refuse to call it X. I've been on Twitter since the inception, so I'm a lifelong Twitter guy and I'll never quit it despite how bad it gets on there. uh sometimes but my day job i'm a digital sports host over at post media in the toronto sun so you can find my work there and i also started up a podcast at the beginning of the season blue jays podcast called three up three down so if you want to check that out you can find it on apple podcast and spotify episodes every uh monday and thursday i actually got to record one tonight as i remind myself to do it after this so uh yeah that's uh all these shameless uh promotion i will if you ever need guests i'm uh i'm always up for uh for more talking about baseball there you go yeah definitely And on that note, obviously, everybody check that out. It is a great work that you're doing with the podcast so far. I listened to it this morning, the Monday show. I was finally not in ten billion meetings this week. Well done, sir. Keep it up. And to that point, I would love to hear and goof around and chit chat more with you on baseball cards, all that. You're obviously welcome here anytime you want to chit chat Blue Jays baseball or whatever baseball I'm like. I do have one thing I'd like to mention, Craig. Sure. You know, I have lots of people in live right now, and we do have, you know, like we were discussing before, our numbers have been significantly growing off, you know, people listening on the downloads, um, this Saturday at Harfield, uh, at Parkgate park, where my kids play baseball, the North shore twins, um, they are doing a, a really cool thing where they're doing challenger baseball. Um, they're helping the, the, our boys will be helping set it up and then help these, uh, these athletes that don't get a chance to, to play baseball on the regular, be it, you know, uh, the being in a wheelchair or whatever the, uh, whatever their situation may be it's a lot of fun um you know of the it's going to be it's going to be great i think it starts at ten a.m uh i'll follow up with one of my fun walking the dog videos to give you actual times but if you're if you're free and around um i don't think there could be anything cooler than coming to cheer for these kids um as they get uh as they get to play a little uh you know of such a great game and it's it's such a great thing so Pretty cool. Amazing. And just so everybody's aware, we got some fun schedule. We're obviously having a wonderful, fun time here with Rob tonight. We have our buddy Daryl of Jay Birdie, our sponsor, who is also just one of the most fun people you can goof around and have a good time with on a baseball podcast. We have a bonus episode next week on Friday evening. Samantha Waj is a... wonderful artist we're gonna have a quick thirty minute beat with her and talk it out and she literally only paints with whatever the tools of that person's trade are so all the blue jays art she does is literally done in baseball bats baseballs leather gloves all that kind of stuff so it's really cool i'm uh looking i'm very very interested in how you come across that kind of a thing And then we have Zach Lutz and a couple of others that finish off the month before Canada Day and everything like that. So make sure you join us. We have a great schedule. And we'll get to talk all things Simeons Wood Richardson, apparently, over the next week. So thank you again, Rob. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Hit us up in the comments section and keep things going. Until next week, let's go Blue Jays. Cheers.