TORONTO -- Finally, everyone can exhale. The long-lost 2025 Blue Jays have been found again, even if only for a moment.
It took all week and most of Wednesday’s 4-3 win over the Dodgers to see a glimpse of this again, but finally, it’s there. The Blue Jays had lost six straight, already swept by the White Sox on the road and flirting with being swept by the Dodgers in their World Series rematch. Even the series-finale win wasn’t flawless, but Blue Jays baseball isn’t supposed to be beautiful, it’s just supposed to work.
“A big hit usually leads to a win. Sometimes, scoring on an error leads to a win. You just need a win,” John Schneider said. “Shake hands, high-five, get the lights on in the clubhouse and enjoy an off-day. Sometimes, it’s a hit. Today, it was a little bit of everything.”
Yes, it’s still terribly early for such anxiety to surround a 5-7 team, but timing matters and expectations matter. This is the biggest audience the Blue Jays have had -- both in Toronto and nationally -- since their World Series years in 1992-93. Attendance proves it, with crowds of 40,000-plus on Monday and Tuesday. All of these fans, and the millions watching across Canada most nights, are chasing the high of the World Series run again.
You’ll never feel that high in April, but everyone just wants a taste. They want to see the same style of baseball, the same stars, the same comeback kings that made the 2025 Blue Jays special. Perhaps it’s fitting then that this win didn’t come on a 500-foot home run from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Instead, it came from pinch-hitter Davis Schneider grinding out a walk, advancing to third on an Andrés Giménez single and scoring when Giménez stole second while the ball bounced away from the Dodgers.
Schneider walked twice and scored twice. He was the game’s most important player without putting a single ball in play.
It took a while. It was messy. It was, at last, a Blue Jays win.
“It’s such a long season ahead of us,” Davis Schneider said. “Obviously we’re not starting the way we wanted with the injuries and the losses, but there’s 150 games left. There’s still a lot of baseball to be played. Hopefully, we can use this as a jump start to a winning streak.”
The past week doesn’t suddenly live in a brand new light, though. There are still miles to go for the Blue Jays to fully recapture the magic of that 2025 team and all of the things which made it special. One win over the Dodgers is just the first step in the right direction after a week spent getting lost, but it’s a start nonetheless.
What do the Blue Jays need to do to turn this slow start around and leave an ugly week in the past?
More: Offense, of any kind
This has to be the model, or at least the later innings when the Blue Jays piled on have to be.
The Blue Jays rank tied for 26th in baseball with 41 runs. If the long ball isn’t going to be there, which it hasn’t early, Toronto needs to scrape something together with good “team” baseball, not just individual efforts.
“That’s how we won last year,” Davis Schneider said. “Come-from-behind wins and finding ways to score runs regardless of home runs. That’s what we did really well last year. We ran the bases well, went first to third and found ways to score other than the home run.”
Less: Fundamental mistakes
This has been the biggest difference between the 2025 and ‘26 teams. We focus so much on the star players and big plays -- rightfully so -- but games between great teams so often come down to which side makes the fewest mistakes.
A year ago, the Blue Jays were masters of this, playing airtight baseball with solid defense and excellent baserunning. This year, they’ve sprung some leaks.
Over the last week, each game tended to bring a new example. Wednesday’s came from Guerrero, who was thrown out trying to advance from second to third in the sixth inning on a ground ball.
“There, you want to be a little more careful with nobody out. I get it and I talked to Vlad about that,” John Schneider said.
What the manager wants to see is what Davis Schneider did, advancing in a smart spot and showing aggression in the right moment. We know it’s in this team's wheelhouse because we’ve seen it so often before, and finally, we got a glimpse of what it could look like again.