Chris Bassitt *DOMINATES* The Padres In MUCH NEEDED Victory… | Blue Jays Rumours

Chris Bassitt *DOMINATES* The Padres In MUCH NEEDED Victory… | Blue Jays Rumours

I mean, if that’s not a huge win for this Toronto Blue Jays team, only getting three hits, I don’t know what else is. You are Locked On Blue Jays, your daily Toronto Blue Jays podcast, part of the Locked Onet. Your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Blue Jays. Thank you for making Locked On Blue Jays your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube or the locked on podcast network. Your team every day. This episode’s brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code locked on MLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. As always, I’m Braden Wasco. He’s Carter first. You can find us on Twitter, Braden Fiwasco. Carter first, too, as well. Our main Twitter account, LockedJays. Make sure you guys do go follow us on there. Um, and then our Twitter and our Instagram, Locked on Blue Jays as well. Well, if you’re new here to YouTube or you’re listening anywhere else, make sure you guys head over to the YouTube page. You hit the subscribe button there so you guys can get notified whenever we go live. We have posts, we have podcasts, we have videos. Sort of the whole ordeal is right there on YouTube, readily available for you guys and it’s free, so might as well. Big win. Big win. Not the best game from the offense, but if you get the job done, you get the job done, Carter. And that’s what this team was able to do today. And uh yeah, that was huge, wasn’t it? Yeah, it’s the power of the home run ball. You don’t need a ton of hits when you’re hitting home runs. And you get it from two guys that you’ve been asking for the power from the entire season. Vladimir Gro Jr. doing it in the first inning. Doesn’t even necessarily barrel up that baseball. Kind of catches off the end of the bat, but that still was a no doubter as soon as we saw that swing. Had a good feeling that it was going to get out of the ballpark. And then Anthony Santandere, a guy that we kind of talked about on the last episode. What needs to change? What does he have to do? in that uh hit. It was the second inning where we saw Andre Sonair swing and I showed you uh the reflex. You missed the last swing of that strikeout and golf swings look better than what Anthony did on that pitch. So again, not great at bats throughout the entirety of this game, but a huge bounceback hit, huge bounceback swing. All it takes is one sometimes when a guy like Anthony Sonere, you get one massive swing like that and obviously it elevates the Toronto Blue Jays over the San Padres’s three to nothing. Dylan CE is still so good. Like this a little bit of this you got to chalk up just Dylan CE being an absolute dog. The uh the RA is a little bit inflated to based off of some of his starts uh at the start of the season. Did not look good in his first three starts but after that has really dialed it in. You look at the baseball savant he’s still getting lots of whiffs. The fast wheel obviously obviously playing sitting around 96 97 in this game today. A lot of good pitches. The slider is one of his best pitches as well. Dylan CE, very good pitcher and a very good win to get against a very good San Diego Padres’s team. Yeah. No, it’s huge. And and yeah, you can’t take anything away from Dylan CE. And you know, I think they even said on the broadcast uh last night, they said he he’s fantastic. You see the slider just absolutely eat guys all night long. And there’s nothing else you can say but that he is a great pitcher. And he is. Um Carter, that Anthony Santandere um strikeout was one of the worst things I’ve seen. it was back. Um, but then he goes and hits the home run and I think you saw a ton of relief not only from Anthony Santandere himself. Uh, he’s looking to the heavens and then they pan the camera to Vlad and Vlad’s up in arms looking at the heavens as well because I think everybody on this team knows that when Santandere is at his best, he is a fantastic player for this team, but we really haven’t seen him at his best. So, I think everybody’s just sort of waiting for him to really get things going. Um, and maybe this is the start, maybe it’s not, but man, you got to hope so. Yeah, they’re going to call him sixth hole Santandere. Maybe that was just the key. Move this guy down in the lineup, take a little bit of that pressure off. And then Anthony Santandere obviously launches the baseball that gets out of here in a hurry. And a two-run home run. Nice to see that it wasn’t just a solo shot as well. Gave the Blue Jays a little bit of leeway with their pitching. Obviously, they did not need it whatsoever because oh my god, Chris Basset, unbelievable start from Basset. I know that the Seattle Mariners uh did kind of beat up on the Padres’s as well. I think it’s been 16 innings now. It might be 15. It’s been a long time since the San Diego Padres’s have scored a run. So, kind of some good timing here with San Diego coming to town. Their offense not necessarily clicking up to their par with all the talent that they do have throughout this lineup. But, you cannot take anything away from Chris Basset. The command was debatably the best that he’s had it all season. Was picking corners through the cutter very well in this start today. uh was able to locate extremely well. When you have Chris Bass, when you have seven, eight pitches and you’re locating all of them and they’re playing off each other very well, that is exactly what you need from a Chris Basset start and just from your starting pitching in general. We talked about it on the last episode how the starting pitching hasn’t necessarily been up to par for the majority of the season. Chris Basset has not been one of the problems in that uh in that sentiment. He has been for me by far the best pitcher on this team up to this point and he will continue to dominate especially with a guy in a contract year. Yeah, you you needed him, right? I I think we we talked about this last episode of this team not necessarily having a specific number one guy and I was talking about how it needs to be sort of by committee with this group, right? You do have a capable pitcher and Kevin Gosman. You do have a capable pitcher and Jose Bri and that’s an understatement for those two guys. Chris Bassid, I think you saw at the end of last season, sort of be defeated by the season itself. Not necessarily that he is having the worst year. I think he was just mentally done. And he came in, I think he saw the moves that were made in the off season. He saw what this team can be. And you’re seeing a Chris Basset that is motivated to win and is motivated for that next contract. Um, and he has been outstanding, Carter. And this is a guy we talk about. Obviously not the not the hardest thrower in the world, but man, he can get things done. And uh I I I always go and have the argument with some people, right? Because you see the Paul Skeses and all these young guys come up and and they just want to throw 100. That’s it. They’re like, “Hey, if you can get the VLOO going, everything else will fall into place.” But man, it is so nice seeing a pitcher throw a ton of stuff. Because that is another way that these guys can get it done that odds are they avoid more injuries. Chris Bassid is a notorious guy for avoiding injury. Um, knock on wood. Let’s not put that out in the universe. Yeah. But at the end of the day, these are the type of guys that you need and and when they’re on and their stuff is working, this is these are types of pitchers you can build around. But it it does it brings a little more fluctuation to the game because you don’t know necessarily from season to season if their stuff is going to be on or not or for certain stretches. But I think out of everything we’ve seen out of Chris Bassid for this Toronto Blue Jays team, he has been above and beyond excellent and and just a great guy as well. So, I love watching the little interviews that they do with him because uh really seems to like down to earth type of guy and when you see him go out there and eat guys alive that it’s even more fun because you get the little bit of the personality in there as well. Chris Basset is aging like a fine wine. He is a silver fox getting better with age. Obviously, the contract year might play into that a little bit as well, but just clearly a student of a games technician uh when it comes to him pitching on the mound. And one thing that he did really well today and obviously allowed him to be very aggressive and allows every pitcher to be aggressive when you can do this is he got ahead in counts early. Seemed like he was pitching ahead in pretty much every single at bat in this game. When you have counts in your favor, whether it’s 01, uh, one, two, 22, whatever it may be, Chris Basset able to be aggressive, able to attack these hitters, especially again, they’re not necessarily the most confident they have been this whole season. They’re in a little bit of a lull offensively. Chris Basset fully taken advantage of that. It’s a whole lot easier to pitch when you’re on the offense, when you’re not playing defense, when you’re not just trying to throw strikes, throw trying to throw something in there. When you’re in attack mode, getting aggressive, and trying to get some massive whiffs during this game, Chris Basset did exactly that uh against Dylan Cece. Again, a very good pitcher on the other side in a game that what we thought would be a massive series turning point uh for the Toronto Blue Jays team. Obviously, we’ll get into game two more so in the third segment. So, we’re going to stick to game one here. And when you look at the Toronto Blue Jays offense, I mean, there wasn’t a ton of offense, as you alluded to in at the start of this podcast. Three hits. This Toronto Blue Jays team got three hits, but definitely does help when two of those hits are home runs. It definitely helps when your pitching staff puts up zero after zero after zero and does not, you know, allow the San Diego Padres’s to score runs. Again, not going to be a recipe for success consistently, but it’s going to be pretty well for yourself. It’s going to blow pretty well if you don’t allow the other team to score runs in a baseball game. Yeah, Carter, just one thing I wanted to go into a little bit here was where this team is at with their home run power. Uh they are now 22nd in the league and which don’t get me wrong isn’t good, but man, it’s a lot better than where we started this year at. We were we were in a rough spot when it came to home runs. And over the last bunch of games here, this Toronto Blue Jays team has been able to find the long ball. And how important that is for a team um is is just unbelievable. I I mean, you’re seeing it. These are the type of games you can win when you get, you know, you’re getting pitchered. And that’s what happened today. They got Dylan CES was all over them. But two home runs changes the baseball game. Sometimes one home run can change a baseball game, but when you hit two, especially when they’re from your big dogs, it it really goes the distance. And we’ve talked about how good this pitching staff is when they get a little bit of help. Well, the offense has been bringing the help and in terms of power, they’ve been getting the long ball. So I maybe we start to see this team sort of put it all together here. That’s what you got to hope for. The a little bit of the unfortunate thing that we have been noticing with this offense is yes, the power has come, the home runs are starting to come, but the on base stuff when these home runs are coming is starting not necessarily being an issue, but you want runners on obviously if you’re going to hit the long ball and a lot of these scenarios, we have seen some solo shots from this Toronto Blue Jays team and we haven’t seen the big hit still in this in these big scenarios. Anthony Sandere obviously did launch in this baseball game, but still uh again did have some pretty crappy at bats throughout this game. So again, when you do have that one home run, I been saying this since we started this podcast, you go one for four with a home run. I’m not going to complain about that stat line whatsoever. But it’s just hopefully a confidence booster. Like you said, looked very relieved as soon as he hit that home run. Dton Marshall was one of the most fired up out of that dugout. I’d say other than maybe Vladimir Gro Jr. But you got up right away, almost jumped over the railing in that dugout. Just nice to see these guys kind of, you know, realizing how big of a moment this was for a guy that was struggling throughout this game. And uh, you know, hopefully that is again a confidence boost that Anthony Sandere can take as we continue on in the San Diego Padre series and just continue on into the season. Maybe the slow starter narrative can finally be put to bed and uh, well, no, I guess not put to bed, but it can finally be over. This slow starting stuff and we can get to the Anthonair that we’ve kind of been accustomed to seeing in these last few seasons. But there is one play that I do want to go over and it is actually right after the Anthony Santandere home run. Aston Barger gets on base, steals second base. That’s a great play obviously ends up being at third base with one out. Nathan Lucas is up to the plate. Nathan Lucas has a pretty good at bat. Gets it to a full count. Lines out to first base and I get the contact play is on, but you got to be able to read a play as a baseball player this ball. again pretty obviously in the air in my opinion especially to that first base side. So in theory you should have a lot more time even with that contact play on to get back to third base. I wish there was a better angle on what Aston Barger was doing. I don’t know if he was doing the Macarena all of a sudden on the base pass and decided that he was not going to get back to third base but you had a double clutch from the first baseman. Still able to throw Aston Bar out at third base would have been a nice insurance run. Again, hindsight’s 2020. Doesn’t necessarily matter. But again, when you are playing these good teams, when these offenses do start to pick up, especially the San Diego Padres’s offense with how how much power they do have throughout this lineup, that is a scenario again, younger player, I get it, on the base path trying to do something, trying to score another run, but that can’t happen, especially when you do have Bobette coming up in a big situation. Yeah, I I absolutely agree. I mean, I mean, that play has to be better, but at the same point, I I do understand the thought process to this play. you’re thinking Nathan Lucas just got to put something in play. Addison Barger takes off of the plate or or makes a bigger move to the plate and gets stunned a little bit and and I think that’s what happened out there. Now, is it a good play? Am I completely defending him? Absolutely not. I mean, I think there was enough time there for a little bit quicker reaction and maybe that’s on Addison Barger. Maybe it was head down taking a couple extra steps towards home uh in case that ball does get down. But in the same respect, at the I don’t know, you got to be able to read the play and like like you said, right, if that gets over the first baseman’s head or or by the first baseman, you’re scoring anyway. You’re and and if it gets hit in front of him, I don’t I don’t think you’re I I think you’re getting gunned. So, I I don’t know. I’m a little bit torn up on that because I do understand the play and wanting to drive in that run. Nathan Lucas, to me, I don’t know. He’s a singles guy. Do you have faith that he’s going to get it past a little bit of an in infield? I don’t know. But you know what? It turned out how it did. I I just think at the end of the day, that’s probably a weird call to have. I don’t necessarily love it. I think you let Nathan Lucas try to hit that ball, hopefully get something in the gap, and then like you said, if not, you have Bobette uh coming up. And you know, for a guy that was going over on the day, you’d hope that he’d be able to come up and and maybe come up in a big situation. And Bobett’s been fantastic with runners in scoring positions. So yeah, just a tough situation all around for that one for sure. No, that was just my only pet peeve with it. If it was in the eighth spot and Ernie Clemens up and you have Nathan Lucas coming up after I know he’s been very hot, but again it’s it is Nathan Lucas. It’s not you’re you’re probably hopefully allstar shortstop this year in Bobette. Obviously we’ll have to see obviously when we get closer to that all-star break, but again I have a lot more faith in Bobaet than I do in a guy like uh Nathan Lucas. So again, just because Bobette was the guy that was on deck in a big scenario, like you said, he has been good with runners in scoring position. Just uh a little bit of a tough and unfortunate play there for Addison Barger. But again, hopefully that is something that he learns from. Hopefully that is a mistake that he will not make again because we kind of saw Nathan Lucas make a boneheaded play earlier on in the season where he tried to steal third base from second, get gunned out by a mile and he has been a whole lot better on the base pass since then. Again, a little bit of a different scenario. in Lucas over 30 years old as in Barger still only 25. But again, younger player doesn’t have a ton of major league experience. So, you can chalk that up to maybe a bunch of different things that were occurring in this game. But, I do want to focus obviously on the pitching because pitching won the Toronto Blue Jays this game. You can’t necessarily uh hold the offense uh too much accountable for their lack of production, but you do score three runs. You do have the hound on the mount. You have the bullpen that was absolutely shoving. We’re going to get into that after this short break. Today’s episode’s brought to you by Monarch Money. 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When I started using Monarch Money, I realized how much I spent on delivery hats, just some random non-necessities. Now I budget smarter and save more. Take control of your finances. Monarch Money. Use code locked on MLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. 50%. That’s nuts. That’s monarchmoney.com. Code locked on MLB for half off your first year. So, Carter, let’s let’s talk about the pitching because um one guy that I know you specifically weren’t super high on at the beginning of this season and rightfully so, he wasn’t fantastic. We saw the problems, but Yariel Rodriguez, and don’t get me wrong, a ball gets pretty much blasted off him and Nathan Lucas makes a nice play and I know we’ve talked about Kurt Bass already, but just how Yariel Rodriguez has been as of late has really been a surprise to the both of us. I would think he is really succeeding in this bullpen role, kind of the traditional bullpen role that he did have when he played in Japan in 2022. And you can tell he’s just letting the fast ball lead. does not have to, you know, be stocked up and ready to go for four, five, six innings. He can kind of just put it all on the table for the one or two innings that he is in uh in the game four. And right now, we’re seeing John Schneider be a little bit more comfortable putting this guy in higher leverage situations. Comes in in the eighth inning in this baseball game and really makes quick work through this San San Diego Padres’s lineup. He went 912. So, he did have Luis Rice, he did have Fernando Tatis. That ground ball swing he got from Fernando Tatis was absolutely disgusting. He just looked very uncomfortable in the batters box. uh during that at bat. Again, the stuff has always been there for Yariel Rodriguez. You see it in the slider. You see how the fast ball plays again sitting at like 97 on the on the fast ball coming out of the bullpen. This was a discussion that I did want to bring up on the podcast right now because when you look at the starting rotation, you look at this bullpen. There’s a lot of arms who trust in the bullpen right now. I’d still say Jeff Hoppin you got to trust. Obviously, I know there has been some hiccups recently. Same thing with Jimmy Garcia, but still have to have a lot of trust in this guy. Mason Fity has been very good. Brennon Little’s been very good. Uh there’s some injury updates that we’re going to go into, but Nick Sandin should be relatively close to coming back now. You do have Yario Rodriguez, Eric Swanson will be thrown into this mix. Ryan Burr will be thrown into this mix. Again, there is a lot up in the air for Matt Shurer. So, where I’m getting at with this is that right now you have a fairly decent amount of bullpen depth. You have a bunch of guys in this bullpen that you do trust right now. Whereas the starting rotation, you still have Kevin Goss, you still have Jose Rios, you still have Chris Basset. But like we said in the last podcast, Don Francis has not been very good. this season is giving up a ton of long balls and Eric Low has been fun to watch so far, but again, how consistent can this guy be? So, this is kind of the uh the thing I’m going to bring up here at this point, maybe not right now, maybe it’s sometime down the line. Again, this does probably have to do with where Max Scherzer is at in his recovery time, but would you be okay with moving Yario Rodriguez back to a starting role? And if B and France continue to struggle, maybe you do throw him in the bullpen. Is that a good idea for the Toronto Blue Jays team the way things are going right now? No. No. I I don’t like that at all. Uh I think if anything, you got to you got to have trust in Bowen here. I know that things haven’t been unbelievable, but unless it completely goes down the toilet, you I I think you you have to rely on him as a four five guy. And then right now, what you do for that fifth spot is you either roll Eric Lowour into a sort of an opening role, I want to say, or get get as much as you can out of him. And then you roll right into Yariel Rodriguez and some of the other guys that you trust in the pen. and you hope that your offense can show up enough to make sure that you don’t have to bull uh burn other guys in other games for an extended period of time. Now, maybe the question should be, do you roll Ben Francis and then Yariel Rodriguez right after the next day or the the bullpen day the next day? Maybe you arrest somebody and you switch up this order. I know that’s very unconventional and it doesn’t happen very often, but maybe that saves a couple of your bullpen arms where you’re not having to use guys on back-to-back days or um in in too hefty of amounts, I guess. Um and again, we we’ll get into I guess I’ll talk about the Max Scherzer of it all right now as well and where am I at with how I feel on him is he threw 33 pitches the other day, has two or three more days of uh live pitching to go through. Now, does that go well? Does it not go well? I have no idea. Um, you got you got to hope that he’s back somewhat soon and you at least get a month out of him until Malak Manoa can come back and then you’re probably riding from there because what I’ve seen from Alec Manoa and him him going through his throwing progressions he looks really good. I I think he’s I I I said it when he comes back I think he’s going to be a dog and then you’re a little bit less worried right as you move into the the main component of this season. you have possibly four guys that you trust heavily and then Bowen Francis, we’ll see where he ends up, right? Will he make those adjustments? Will he not? But if if he’s your fifth guy and then you’d have to then go to a Bowen Francis, Yariel Rodriguez, what they were sort of doing last year with the um you know, the split start almost. Um maybe that’s where you go, but I I think right now Yariel Rodriguez is being so good in this bullpen role. I don’t know if I want to mess with that. I think you use him as this I don’t even like him as the opener. I sort of like him as the secondary guy. Yeah, I like if you have to use Jar Rodriguez after a guy like Ben Francis, I think that is something you can do. I have a bunch of things I want to say on this topic. Uh I think with Yario Rodriguez, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it or so like don’t change anything. Why would you change anything with Yori Rodriguez is finally starting to get a little bit of comfortability at the MLB level again. He looks unbelievable coming out of the bullpen and maybe you don’t have to use him in all these high lever situations but again if he’s going to continue to produce why not throw him in these high lever situations and like you said you do have Aquanola coming back and you didn’t even bring up the bull Spencer Turbo who again is in some rehabbing assignments right now is working up so again right now if B Francis does have a few blowup starts and you do want to make a move kind of earlier on the season you have Spencer Turnal that you could go to again it kind of depends on what he’s sitting at he’s only sitting at 90 that might not bode well for you but he’s kind of at that 929 93 mark that we have seen from Spencer Turbo last season. I think that is another option obviously for the starting rotation with Max Sherzer with uh there is the updates obviously he is throwing bullpens right now but kind of what I said a month ago and we still haven’t seen it. If this guy isn’t throwing over 4550 pitches then I don’t care. I don’t care about any of these updates whatsoever because when are the problems starting to happen with the right thumb? It’s when there’s 45 to 50 pitches in the baseball game. So I don’t care if he’s throwing 30. I don’t care if he’s throwing 40. I need to see Max Shruzer actually throw 60 75 pitches. Doesn’t necessarily have to get to that 100 pitch mark, but he’s gonna have to get over this 45 or 50 mark for me to feel any sort of positive way about Max Sher at this point. Let me jump in here. Just an idea. Okay. So, you do really want to pay Max Sherzer a guy that again can possibly be effective for 35 maybe under 40 pitches. Maybe instead of, you know, depending on what happens with Lowour, depending on what happens with Turnball, whatever, maybe you bring in Scherzer to throw as an opening role. Maybe you just limit the amount of pitches he’s going to throw and then you turn things over to Ariel Rodriguez. If it really gets to a point where things are that bad or that, you know, you’re starting to see some holes here, maybe that’s an option. You have this guy for one year. Why not use him for what he’s worth a little bit or whatever you can get out of him? If it is 3540 pitches, if it is two, three innings, if it is two innings, honestly, then you turn things over to Eric Lowour and Yariel Rodriguez. And I don’t know, it’s an option as well. It’s not a good one, but if you have to get there, at least maybe you have maybe you can at least use him and he’s he’s not just taking Toronto’s money. Yeah, at some point obviously if that does happen, this has been an absolutely failed mission by the Toronto Blue Jays. Uh front office by Ross Atkins. you do not bring in Max Sherzer for 15 and a half million dollars for him to throw two to three innings. But again, if this injury is this bad, you only have him for one year anyway. Probably a good chance Max retires after the season, I can’t imagine another team is going to take a massive risk on this guy. So again, if you only have him available in a limited capacity might not be the worst idea to get some sort of your money’s worth at this point. And like you said, you have Yari Rodriguez, you’re gonna have Alec Manoa at some point and what kind of role we’re gonna have to see Eric Low still around here. Gonna have to see how Spencer Turbo is. There is some options throughout this uh starting rotation right now and you don’t really have any options in this AAA system right now. Obviously with Jake Bloss going down. Are you really confident in anyone else? I think at this point if you’re going to go anywhere else, you might look at some DFA candidates. You may have to bring in a Casey Lawrence guy. We saw that went last time. Not exactly ideal, but this team does have options at this point. They just got to kind of get to if they get to June again. Max Sher should be available. Spencer Turn that point should be an option depending on how Eric Low pitches at least you do have a bunch of different places that you could go to and a bunch of different arms that you can rely on if things aren’t necessarily going well with Bon Francis or any of the guys that you are throwing in these four and five rotation spots up to this point. But uh is there anything else you want to kind of go into from these two games? I I did want to talk a little bit about Brendan Little because he just continues to be absolutely dominant. Again, last year when you look at Brennon Little, the fly ball to home run ratio was the problem. It’s almost a 50% fly ball home run ratio. So every second fly ball that was getting hit into the air was leaving the ballpark. All the underlying stats for Brennan Little were very good and we’re seeing that with the knuckle curve. One of the best pitches in all of baseball. This guy might be one of the more underrated relief pitchers in the league at this point. Oh, I couldn’t agree more. I I think it’s it’s gotten to the point now where Brennan Little comes in and I’m or he doesn’t come in and I’m like, why would you not go to Brendan Little there? This guy has been that good. And and I think that’s just a testament to what he’s done uh in the off seasonason of of working through things and and we talked about this with Bowen, right? The ability to change, the ability to adapt to what the hitters are doing. And and Brendan Little saw what his problem was and address that in the offseason. And to me, that is a massive step forward for not only him for this bullpen. He is a big player here. Um and and a big component to why this bullpen has been successful. So absolutely hats off tap hat tips to him. Fantastic start to the season for Brenon Little. Yeah, this bullpen rocks. It’s simply put as that this is the Toronto Blue Jay strong suit. It is their bullpen. Didn’t necessarily think that was going to be the strong suit going into this season, but hey, you got six or seven arms right now that you can reliably put out there and be very confident that they are going to put up a zero. But the baseball does not stop. Toronto Blue Jays still have a tough series ahead of them. nice to obviously get the first win of a series, but a series win would feel so good against a team like Seattle San Diego Padres’s. I don’t care how good or bad their offense is playing. This is going to be one of the best teams in the entire MLB during this season. So, if they can win a series here, that would be a massive step in the right direction, especially with this team’s confidence, with this motivation to continue to win series and get above the 500 mark that we just seemingly have so much trouble to get over. still have obviously a series to preview, a game we’re going to preview, and that is coming up after this short break. So, Carter, I guess the big question now is they’ve done what you said needed to happen was take game one. Um, for me and you, I think we both said it was game two that was our quote unquote lock game if if you wanted to pick one of them. And if they could pull out the first one, that’s bonus, right? We think game three might be an issue just with how bad Francis has been. But now, are you really realistically looking at this series and the fact that the San Diego Padres’s have not scored a run in 16 innings, are you confident that this baseball team can now go on and win this series? I think if you are going to win this series, I think you do have to win game two. I’m not convinced that Randy Vasquez is that good. Again, the stats have been pretty solid this season, but if you’re looking at the pitching matchups, this is the one that you would want. Not going to say it’s a lock whatsoever, but I think this is your easily your best pitching matchup on paper. Kind of depends on what Kevin Gosman is going to give you. Again, has been a little bit inconsistent recently, but again, when you have a struggling Padres’s team right now, this would be a very good game to take advantage of, especially again when you do have Bound Francis, who has been struggling on the mound a little bit uh in these last few starts. So again, uh I don’t necessarily think you want to rely on a Bow and Francis quality start in that game and you don’t want to rely on winning that baseball game to win the series. You want to take it now. You want to win against I think a fairly getable pitcher in Ramy Vasquez. So hopefully this offense can continue to kind of shine, continue to hit the home run ball. Again, you don’t necessarily need seven, eight, nine, 10 hits. If you can hit multiple home runs in in baseball games, that’s what this team has been doing. If you can get five, six innings from Kevin Gosman, I’ll even say five innings of three-run baseball. The way this bullpen has been pitching, the way they’ve set this team up right now, Jeff Hoffman probably still is available. Jimmy Garcia obviously available. Mason Fluard, you still have multiple options in this bullpen, they’re in a good spot right now. Let’s just see if they can play consistent baseball and have a cohesive unit and win a massive series against this Padres’s team. Yeah, this would be huge. And again, the San Diego Padres’s, that was their fourth straight loss. So, this is a time you’re getting a good team in a little bit of a I don’t want to say slump, but slump. So, take advantage. You got to go out there. You got to bring the bats because like you said, I think you you’re hoping that Kevin Gossman’s going to bring you a good day. So, I think you really got to take advantage of this and and we’ll see. We’ll see what what kind of baseball team rolls out there uh later on today as you guys are listening to this podcast. So, again, let us know. How do you guys feel? How do you guys feel about this last game? Are are you happy that they were able to get this win against a good baseball team? Carter, um I did go two for two in fantasy this week as well. I did want to throw that in there in my friends league and in the locked on Blue Jays league. So, uh shout out me. First time ever I think I’ve won in both leagues. Not a good stat. Yeah, I guess I’ll address the elephant in the room. We’re undefeated no more. Uh unfortunately did take a loss. Uh it’s been a little bit coming. I think the last three weeks I’ve kind of been, you know, on the ropes a little bit in fantasy. did get a I’m not going to say a lucky win cuz I did score I think over 200 points but definitely was not expected but again it’s fantasy you’re going to go through highs you’re going to go through peaks you’re going to go through valleys it’s not always going to be the best brand of baseball but I think I set myself up pretty well so far you know starting the season seven and one and again still going to play Braden one more time this season so at least put one free win on the docket there one thing I quickly want to go over again is just some more injury updates uh Max Sher Nick Salman obviously both through bullpen sessions Amen should be a few days away probably back near the end of this week. And then relievers Ryan Burr and Eric Swanson, Eric Swanson, sorry, will be pitching in one of Toronto’s minor league affiliates and that would should be today, the day this podcast is released. This also depending on the weather, but you have some reinforcements coming back in. You have some guys that you can rely on down the stretch. This notion of overusing the bullpen was catching some sort of merit for some reason with this team. So if you have pitchers coming back now, you have two, three bullpen arms that will come back that aren’t necessarily taxed. So that should bode well for this Toronto BJ team, especially again if you don’t get necessarily the starting pitching you want. Maybe this team goes with a bullpen day for a month or so. Again, it’s not the most ideal scenario, but it is an option, especially with all these guys coming back from injury. Yeah, we’ll have to see what happens again. And and maybe a bigger conversation is is when these two guys come back, who goes down? That’s going to have to be a conversation as well. Maybe we’ll tee that up for later on in the week when we start talking about the Eric Swanson and Ryan Burr return, Nick Sandlin return as well. What happens? Who are you okay with seeing get sent down? We’ll have to have that conversation as the week continues. Uh stay tuned here locked on Blue Jays for more Blue Jays content, updates, news all throughout the week. Uh Carter, before we get out of here, anything else from you or are you uh just ready for some more Blue Jays baseball against a good San Diego Padres’s team? Yeah, just ready for a series win. hopefully taking advantage again of a little bit of a scuffling team. But just wanted to say thank you guys for the likes, comments, all the support recently has been much appreciated. We have noticed that about 76 of you guys are not subscribed. We are tuning in, coming back, watching all the shorts, the podcast, any of the content that we do post obviously helps us out a ton. Also keeps all the content at the top of your page. Yeah, let’s go in a series. Let’s get some momentum, especially with the Tampa Bay Rays later on in this week. The Toronto Blue Jays always seem to struggle against the Rays. So having momentum on their side would be a massive bolster to this offense, this starting pitching staff, and obviously just to this bullpin as well. Want to say one more time, thank you guys for watching, and we will be right back with you guys tomorrow.

The Toronto Blue Jays win a massive game against the San Diego Padres, as they get production from their big dogs in this tight baseball game. The Hound on the Mound was DOMINANT in this game, having the best command we have seen from him this season. This is a great start to the week, as the Blue Jays look to carry this momentum into the next two games of this series. In this episode, we break down the key moments from this series, while also giving our takes on what this management should do with Yariel Rodríguez, while providing you the most up to date news and analysis on Locked On Blue Jays.

Your current Toronto Blue Jays roster: Vladimir Guerrero Jr, Bo Bichette, Kevin Gausman, Yimi Garcia, Anthony Santander, Alek Manoah, Jeff Hoffman, Yariel Rodriguez, George Springer, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, Andrus Gimenez, Daulton Varsho, Alejandro Kirk, Erik Swanson, Max Scherzer, Leo Jimenez, Davis Schneider, Ernie Clement, Chad Green, Jake Bloss, Nick Sandlin, Bowden Francis, Joey Loperfido, Orelvis Martinez, Ricky Tiedemann, Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes, Josh Walker, Christian Bethancourt, Will Wagner, Tommy Nance, Jonatan Clase, Steward Berroa, Myles Straw, Alan Roden, Easton Lucas, Paxton Schultz, Mason Fluharty

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