TORONTO – Through the first three months of the season, John Schneider largely refused to put extra significance on AL East clashes, made rarer by the new more-balanced schedule, for his Toronto Blue Jays.
Every series matters, each game counts the same, he’d often say. That’s not wrong, although less intra-division play means less head-to-head opportunity to directly make up ground in the standings on teams they’ll likely be competing with for post-season berths.
The Blue Jays need only to think back to 2021 to remember the perils of needing help from others.
So, it was notable then that ahead of Friday’s opener against the Boston Red Sox, the first meeting between the rivals since a dismal four-game sweep at Fenway Park May 1-4, Schneider struck a different tone.
“At this point, this is the first time I’ll say a little bit, yeah,” he replied when asked if the scarcity of divisional matchups in July added anything to this weekend. “Every series is important because of the schedule. But when you’re looking at a team who’s in your division and one spot below you, you want to try to separate yourself a little bit.
“Guys are aware of that. And I think that we’re at a different spot as a group right now with what we’re doing, where we know we can go, a sense of urgency, time of schedule, things like that, to where we were when we last faced them. So this will be a big series.”
None of that changed the Blue Jays’ ongoing misfortune against the AL East, as James Paxton dominated over 7.2 innings to outduel Jose Berrios, who traded zeroes with the Canadian lefty before taking damage his third time through the order, in a 5-0 Red Sox win.
Justin Turner’s leadoff homer in the fifth inning opened the scoring, while a two-run homer by Jarren Duran and a solo shot by new Blue Jays nemesis Masataka Yoshida in the sixth extended a 4-0 lead.
That was plenty for Paxton, who largely used a fastball that averaged 96.3 m.p.h. to pin hitters back and largely avoid sharp contact.
When he didn’t, he got some defence behind him, notably in the first when Vladimir Guerrero sent a drive to the wall in centre field that a leaping Duran reeled in to the chagrin of 37,218 at Rogers Centre.
The Blue Jays didn’t manage a hit until Santiago Espinal’s laser single with two out in the third, but they had only two others reach until the eighth, when Alejandro Kirk singled and an out later, Whit Merrifield walked.
Eventually, Chris Martin came on to strike out pinch hitter Brandon Belt and end the threat.
Berrios, who allowed four runs on five hits with seven strikeouts, was better than his pitching line showed, gamely battling through tenacious at-bat after tenacious at-bat from the Red Sox. They scored 32 times during the four-game sweep in Boston and are now 5-0 versus the Blue Jays this year.
The victory extends the sharp reversal in results between the clubs after the Blue Jays went 16-3 against the Red Sox a year ago, largely making up the difference between the clubs in 2022. Against the rest of baseball, the Blue Jays were 76-67, one game better than the Red Sox, who were 75-68.
Against the AL East, the Blue Jays are now 7-18 this season, while going 38-20 versus everyone else.
