PHILADELPHIA – John Schneider’s plans for what to do on the off-day are rather straightforward.
“Nothing,” he says with a wide grin. “Laundry. Nothing.”
A Thursday at home and away from the ballpark is well-earned for the manager and his Toronto Blue Jays, who through the season’s first seven weeks have played more than twice as many games on the road than at Rogers Centre.
Their 25 road games, in which they’ve gone 12-13 after just completing a 3-6 road trip, lead the majors. On the other hand, their 12 contests at home, where they are 9-3, are a big-league low. They opened the season with a three-city, 10-game road trip and are returning from a three-city, nine-game trek. An upcoming 10-game homestand that begins Friday against Atlanta and includes visits from the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles is the first time they’ll be in one spot for longer than a week since leaving spring training.
“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 pretty well before hitting their first turbulence of the season during a four-game sweep by the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park last week. They bounced back by taking three straight against the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend before dropping a pair at Citizens Bank Park against the Philadelphia Phillies, the finale after surrendering a 1-0 lead in the ninth before falling in 10.
Some of the crispness that they’d prioritized all spring and displayed in their first 28 games came and went in Boston and Philadelphia, with Schneider acknowledging his team “bookended (the road trip) with not our best play, probably defensively or execution-wise.”
Between the miserable weather and a viral infection running through the clubhouse at Fenway (George Springer was still fighting symptoms in Philadelphia when he didn’t start either game there) and a general road-weariness by the end of the trip, some mitigating factors may in part explain the results. But the Blue Jays reset well versus the Pirates and will need to be far sharper against Atlanta, at 25-12 owners of the best record in the National League while dominating on the road at a 15-3 clip.
“We’ve done a pretty good job at turning the page all year,” said 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 a week ago in the opener versus the Pirates, the Blue Jays will look to Chris Bassitt to help turn things around, while Atlanta counters with electric whiff-master Spencer Strider. Jose Berrios goes Saturday against Bryce Elder with Atlanta, having recently lost Max Fried and Kyle Wright to injuries, TBD for the finale against Yusei Kikuchi.
A return to health for Springer would greatly help while Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 1-for-6 with two walks and a hit-by-pitch against the Phillies after missing consecutive games against the Pirates with left wrist soreness.
Clashes with AL East rivals in the Yankees and Orioles follow, which makes this a useful point of the schedule for the Blue Jays to begin capitalizing on their bank of home 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.”
