After earning a split in Oakland, the Blue Jays rolled into Houston and dropped two of three against the Astros.

The series started with an ugly outing from Ross Stripling and then concluded with a frustrating outing from Nate Pearson in his 2021 Blue Jays debut. We talked on this week’s podcast about Big Nate’s struggles with command and whether it’s best for him to go down to Triple-A to work them out or whether the team should let him try to sort it by facing big-league competition.

We also talked about the state of the Blue Jays’ decimated bullpen, Cavan Biggio launching a homer in front of his parents, Rowdy Tellez coming back up and doing well at the plate, Danny Jansen regressing to the mean now that Alejandro Kirk is out long-term. Finally, we looked ahead to the series in Atlanta with the Braves.