TORONTO -- Extra innings can be extra painful.
The Blue Jays turned a lifeless game into a thriller late at Rogers Centre, forcing extras with a five-run flurry in the seventh, but later fell, 7-6, in 10 innings and have now dropped all five games to the Rays this season.
This is what mattered most from the key division loss:
1) FIRST UP: It has to be Vladdy
When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. figures this out, the rest of the lineup will follow. It can be that simple.
Expectations were massive for Guerrero coming into this season. He’s the $500 million man coming off one of the greatest postseason performances in Blue Jays history, where he posted a 1.289 OPS with eight home runs over 18 games. That feels far away right now.
Guerrero is getting his base hits, but that’s it. He’s being out-slugged by just about everyone else in the Blue Jays’ lineup. He hasn’t homered in 20 games, going back to April 20, and has a .752 OPS. We’ve seen power dips throughout Guerrero’s career, but these at-bats just don’t look like the Guerrero we saw in the postseason. Take these two swings, strikes two and three against Shane McClanahan in the first inning:
“He’s trying to do a lot. He’s trying to do a little too much,” Schneider said.
This is not the first time we’ve heard Schneider say that Guerrero is trying to do too much, nor will it be the last. You want your best hitters to crave the moment, and when a team is struggling, they should look to the face of the franchise. It just feels like everyone involved here, from Vladdy to the rest of the Blue Jays’ lineup, needs to see him turn on a ball and hit it 470 feet.
“I think he’s at the point where he wants to be the guy to carry us. The more he does that, the harder it gets,” Schneider said.
2) BIG PICTURE: Hunter to hunted
Prior to the game, Schneider had some interesting thoughts on the differences between 2025 and ‘26, both in how the Blue Jays are being played and how they’re approaching this on an individual level.
“What I’ve been saying to the guys is that what you’ve made yourself become or what you did last year to become ‘X’ player, you have to push the envelope to continue to be ‘X’ player or better, opposed to just assuming the same results are going to happen,” Schneider explained. “That’s just natural with baseball. Teams are going to dig in on you more. Teams are going to prepare differently. They’re going to expose holes. You have to stay ahead of it. I think a lot of guys are going through that, where you can’t just expect it to be what it was at its peak.”
Yohendrick Piñango is a great example of a player “pushing the envelope” and playing with “urgency,” a word Schneider keeps coming back to. His two-run double in the seventh was the biggest swing of the game, and the Blue Jays need more of it.
3) ONE BRIGHT SPOT: Jake Bloss
If we reach all the way down to the Florida Complex League, we can find one thing about Tuesday that went right in the Blue Jays’ world.
Bloss, the Blue Jays' No. 8 prospect, pitched in his first game after Tommy John surgery, throwing 2 1/3 innings with four strikeouts. Bloss still needs to work through these final stages of his rehab and build up his workload, but at 24 years old with an advanced feel for pitching prior to his surgery, a healthy Bloss could be thrown right into the mix for depth starters in Triple-A alongside Chad Dallas, CJ Van Eyk and others.
If Toronto still needs a starter or bulk reliever in a month -- and this season just keeps showing us that the answer is typically “yes” -- Bloss could be back to 100% at a very opportune time.