Blue Jays looking forward to extended homestand after road-heavy start to season

Baseball

Published 11.05.2023

Blue Jays looking forward to extended homestand after road-heavy start to season

PHILADELPHIA – John Schneider’s plans for what to do on the off-day are somewhat easy.

“Nothing,” he says with a large grin. “Laundry. Nothing.”

A Thursday at house and away from the ballpark is well-earned for the supervisor and his Toronto Blue Jays, who by the season’s first seven weeks have performed greater than twice as many video games on the street than at Rogers Centre.

Their 25 street video games, wherein they’ve gone 12-13 after simply finishing a 3-6 street journey, lead the majors. On the opposite hand, their 12 contests at house, the place they’re 9-3, are a big-league low. They opened the season with a three-city, 10-game street journey and are coming back from a three-city, nine-game trek. An upcoming 10-game homestand that begins Friday towards Atlanta and consists of visits from the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles is the primary time they’ll be in a single spot for longer than every week since leaving spring coaching.

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“It’s been a couple of long trips, but it is nice that we do get home for a little bit, get some of these long ones out of the way,” says Schneider. “We love playing at home, especially with an off-day in between. But it does feel like we’ve had the greys on quite a bit this year so far.”

Adds Brandon Belt: “We feel like we’ve barely been at home, for sure. And that makes it tough, being on the road, going to different cities. Hopefully, we can get back home and get a nice little home stretch, be able to settle in a little bit better.”

The Blue Jays had settled in fairly nicely earlier than hitting their first turbulence of the season throughout a four-game sweep by the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park final week. They bounced again by taking three straight towards the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend earlier than dropping a pair at Citizens Bank Park towards the Philadelphia Phillies, the finale after surrendering a 1-0 lead within the ninth earlier than falling in 10.

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Some of the crispness that they’d prioritized all spring and displayed of their first 28 video games got here and went in Boston and Philadelphia, with Schneider acknowledging his crew “bookended (the road trip) with not our best play, probably defensively or execution-wise.”

Between the depressing climate and a viral an infection working by the clubhouse at Fenway (George Springer was nonetheless combating signs in Philadelphia when he didn’t begin both recreation there) and a normal road-weariness by the tip of the journey, some mitigating elements could partly clarify the outcomes. But the Blue Jays reset nicely versus the Pirates and can have to be far sharper towards Atlanta, at 25-12 homeowners of one of the best file within the National League whereas dominating on the street at a 15-3 clip.

“We’ve done a pretty good job at turning the page all year,” mentioned Belt. “We put up a good fight here (against the Phillies) for two games, just didn’t work out for us. Being in the American League East, I don’t know if the schedule is going to let up too much as we go along. But I stand firm and I know this team can handle it. We’ve got a good squad and we can hang with anybody.”

Like they did every week in the past within the opener versus the Pirates, the Blue Jays will look to Chris Bassitt to assist flip issues round, whereas Atlanta counters with electrical whiff-master Spencer Strider. Jose Berrios goes Saturday towards Bryce Elder with Atlanta, having just lately misplaced Max Fried and Kyle Wright to accidents, TBD for the finale towards Yusei Kikuchi.

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Ben Nicholson-Smith is Sportsnet’s baseball editor. Arden Zwelling is a senior author. Together, they create you probably the most in-depth Blue Jays podcast within the league, overlaying off all the most recent news with opinion and evaluation, in addition to interviews with different insiders and crew members.

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A return to well being for Springer would significantly assist whereas Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 1-for-6 with two walks and a hit-by-pitch towards the Phillies after lacking consecutive video games towards the Pirates with left wrist soreness.

Clashes with AL East rivals within the Yankees and Orioles observe, which makes this a helpful level of the schedule for the Blue Jays to start capitalizing on their financial institution of house video games.

“Playing at home is such an advantage for us,” says Kevin Gausman. “We always play better at home, I feel like. Getting back there, obviously a good team coming in in Atlanta, hopefully we can turn the page.”