Blue Jays Happy Hour

The Blue Jays did it. They’re back in the playoffs. And they’re playing a team—the Minnesota Twins—that, based on their indifference toward Sunday’s result, they’re perfectly happy to be up against. One of these teams will end a years-long streak of playoff futility, the other will be in for a longer and colder winter than any of their fans are ready to contemplate right now. They’re in and, for t...

A good weekend at the Trop? In this economy??? When Nick and I recorded Episode 116 back on Thursday, we figured that we'd better add a second episode to our schedule this week, expecting that the Jays by here on Monday night would be about to embark a fight for their playoff lives. Instead, they've come through a second straight weekend in which just about every result they needed went their way....

The Blue Jays came up short against AL Cy Young frontrunner Gerrit Cole on Thursday night, and now face an incredibly tough test against the Rays this weekend at the dreaded Trop. But they’re still in the driver’s seat in the race for the final AL wild card spots. They are also, somehow, tied with the Astros for the third-best record in the American League. It’s only going to get weirder from here...

The Blue Jays are bad, the Alek Manoah situation is weird, Nick and I talked about both things on our latest episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour, and you should give it a listen! You can find us in all the usual places, such as Apple Podcasts… …as well as Spotify , and others. (If you’re a Google Podcasts user, I’m still hopeful that the feed will actually get fixed at some point!) THE BATFLIP is a re...

Blue Jays fans are loving their Buffalo Backup QB Syndrome Boys! But how real are the things that Davis Schneider, Spencer Horwitz, and Ernie Clement doing? Where should those youngsters/older-than-Vlad-sters fit into next season's plans? And how much more would we appreciate what they're doing—or Chris Bassitt is doing, or the delightful return of Hyun Jin Ryu—if Rob Manfred's expanded playoffs h...

Meaningful September baseball. It’s all you can really ask for at the start of a baseball season, and here we are about to have some, Blue Jays fans! CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT? It's been a chaotic week for the Blue Jays, as they managed to go just 3-3 to begin a 15-game stretch against a bunch of mostly awful teams. For the time being the sky has yet to fall, but with the bunt-loving, pinch runn...

At the end of this week’s episode of I mistakenly said that Davis Schneider was going to be in the lineup for the Blue Jays on Wednesday night. He wasn’t. Which only makes our open wondering about why the Jays haven’t managed to find more at-bats for him recently hit all that much harder! Before that, we talked about the pesky Seattle Mariners, the Jays’ surging lefty power hitters (Brandon Belt a...

Should Blue Jays fans be afraid of the Seattle Mariners? Do we believe anything about Bob Nightengale’s suggestion that John Schneider’s job could be in jeopardy if the Jays miss the playoffs? Would Ross Atkins actually bring the kind of heat onto himself that he’d receive by firing another manager? Will anybody remember a 1999 Spike Jonze movie that only made $23 million at the box office? Except...

The Toronto Blue Jays have never lost a game Davis Schneider has played in. That remains even so after Tuesday's loss, in which the red hot rookie remained glued to the bench as the Jays were shut out 1-0 against the Guardian in Cleveland. That he didn't play is, of course, entirely fine and far from unexpected for a guy who wasn't deemed worthy of a spot on a big league roster until less than a w...

MLB’s annual trade deadline has come and gone and, like a whole lot of other teams vying for playoff spots, the Blue Jays are better, but probably not better enough. Génesis Cabrera. Paul DeJong. Jordan Hicks. These names are unlikely to go down in history alongside ones like Henderson, Tulowitzki, or Price. Of course, it’s not going to matter where they rank if the Blue Jays keep playing against...

Above you’ll see a picture of Danny Jansen, who was barely mentioned in this week’s episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour, but probably could have been! Jansen’s been swinging a hot bat lately, and is part of the reason the mood of the fan base is doesn’t seem as bad as it could be after a 3-3 west coast road trip that just as easily could have been 6-0 or 1-5. Anyway, what did we talk about on this wee...

The Blue Jays salvaged their series with the Padres on Thursday afternoon, eking out a 4-0 victory despite having Blake Snell on the ropes all day, thanks in large part to a Vlad Jr. home run and Alejandro Kirk’s best game in weeks — maybe months. They now head to their home away from home, Seattle, for three games over the weekend a half game up on Houston, and 2.5 games ahead of the Red Sox, who...

The All-Star Game has come and gone, meaning that the second half of the Blue Jays’ season is about to get underway. In this week’s episode we look both forward and back, discussing Alek Manoah’s performance last weekend in Detroit, All-Star week’s most notable Jays moments — including Jordan Romano’s back tightness, Vladdy, Lourdes, the Jays being in the running for the 2025 event, and more — plu...

The Blue Jays saved us from another grim episode on Tuesday night, as they actually managed to come back from a 3-2 deficit in Chicago to beat the White Sox 4-3 on the back of a two-run opposite field home run off of the bat of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. But that's not the only comeback Jays fans will be talking about this week. It was announced prior to Tuesday's game that Alek Manoah — who on Sunday...

Alek Manoah was shelled this week in his first competitive outing after being sent all the way to the Florida Complex League, and a certain former Jays pitcher had some thoughts for the haters — whoever they may be. Clearly the ugly box score drew a lot of attention from around the baseball world, but should it have? Should it matter? And where do the Jays go from here with respect to their rotati...

The 2023 Blue Jays continue to give us whiplash as they swing back and forth between good vibes and bad, and earlier this week things were bad enough that there was even chatter — though not of the particularly serious variety, as evidenced by the fact that a couple of wins and a few hits with RISP seems to have instantly quieted it — that manager John Schneider’s job might be in trouble. A Scheid...

The glow of four straight series wins has long since dissipated for the Blue Jays, as they struggled this week, dropping two of three in Baltimore after a similarly disappointing weekend series against Minnesota. There have been bright spots, like José Berríos, Nate Pearson, and Trevor Richards, but — as always — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the centre of attention for this team, for good or ill. And...

The Blue Jays keep winning, completing a series victory on Thursday night by taking their third of four from the Houston Astros — and, importantly, winning the season series and thereby giving themselves the tiebreaker in the event that both teams finish with the same record and tied for the final playoff spot. They’ve now won four straight series since their disastrous mid-May stumble against the...

Blue Jays Happy Hour has reached triple-digits. It's episode 100! Unfortunately, rather than giving us something celebratory to talk about, the Jays this week have given us a mess of a situation involving reliever Anthony Bass. In this episode we discuss what Bass did, his "apology," the Jays' insufficient response, potential fallout, and why the team needs to listen to its fans on this. We tried...

Woof. On losses and more losses, John Schneider’s future, Ross Atkins’ future, the Varsho trade, Alek Manoah, and so many more sources of existential angst! Have a listen! You can find us in all the usual places, such as Apple Podcasts… …as well as Spotify , and others. ( Google Podcasts continues to incredibly stupid about our switch back to our previous Substack-based RSS feed, but I assure you...

The Blue Jays had a chance to make a statement this week in their four-game series against the Yankees, but instead it was Aaron Judge who spoke loudest. Or, actually, it was probably New York manager Aaron Boone who spoke loudest. But Judge and his mighty bat — which time and again managed to make loud contact that rose above the din of the Rogers Centre boo birds — were a close second. Whether o...

The Blue Jays did not have a fun time in Philadelphia this week, but they return home with their heads clearly above water — despite playing in a ridiculous division — with a whole bunch of road games already in the books. Where they go from here metaphorically, however, is a different sort of question. Two of the front office's major objectives over the winter were to add balance to the lineup, a...

The Blue Jays have followed their best stretch of the young season with by far their worst. A week ago the club was riding high, in the middle of what would become a six-game winning streak powered by a near perfect homestand. Then came Sunday and a gut-punch loss to the Mariners that was just a little too reminiscent of last October’s disaster, which then led straight into an ugly four-game sweep...

The Blue Jays sucessfully dismantled the Chicago White Sox this week, and now head into a weekend set with Teoscar Hernández and the Seattle Mariners with a 16-9 record — the best start in franchise history. They're also, uh, currently in third place in their division. But things are mostly going well. Especially when it comes to the club's two most maligned starters heading into the season, and t...

The Blue Jays are really in it now. A tough series with the Astros only let up for a day on Thursday while the club travelled to New York for another tough series with the Yankees. And yet, things seem to be going fairly well for the club — save for one reliever, Anthony Bass, who continues to pile up losses . He's also not pitching very well. HEYO! Fortunately for all of us — but mostly for Nick...