After five losses in a row, the Blue Jays find themselves at a frustrating record of 12-13 over the final 25 games of a fresh season. 12-8 looked like a promising start, but unfortunately, things have taken a turn for the worse more recently.

The reality is, the Blue Jays have mostly dealt with the same hurdle throughout the year; it’s just caught up with them in a tangible way more recently. They’re just not scoring enough runs to win more games than they lose, even with a pitching staff that’s been very effective thus far.

The lacklustre offensive performance has extended throughout the majority of the lineup, even including what should be a daunting top trio of hitters, including Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Anthony Santander. While it’s not a massive surprise that the bottom half of the lineup hasn’t been producing, it has certainly been a disappointment for the big three that are supposed to be leading the way.

Bichette:  .296/.336/.370, 0 home runs, 8 doubles, 13 RBIs
Guerrero Jr:  .277/.373/.372, 1 home run, 6 doubles, 10 RBIs
Santander:  .189/.264/.295, 2 home runs, 4 doubles, 8 RBIs

The 2025 campaign is still very young, and there’s all kinds of time for these three to turn things around, but looking at the stats above, it makes me wonder how the Blue Jays managed to win 12 of their first 25 contests. When you throw in underwhelming offensive starts for others like Andres Gimenez, Ernie Clement, Will Wagner, Alejandro Kirk, and more, the need for their top hitters to perform becomes even more obvious.

The good news is that Bichette, Guerrero Jr., and Santander all have plenty of motivation to get things back on track, and I’m confident they will.

To be fair, Bichette has been solid as he’s hitting nearly .300 thus far, but the lack of power output won’t help his case as he approaches free agency at the end of this season. The Blue Jays may still look to retain him, but regardless, he’s going to want to show MLB front offices that he is still capable of being a 25-30 home run bat as he’s been earlier in his career. The eight doubles so far are encouraging, along with his batting average, but to maximize his next pay day, he’s going to need to hit the ball with more authority, which will be music to the Blue Jays’ ears.

As for Guerrero, he’s now entered a new phase of motivation in his young career, and one that will be important to defining his legacy with the Blue Jays. There’s no doubt that they bet big on their homegrown star after signing him to a 14-year contract worth 500 million dollars, and the Jays are going to look to Guerrero to help lead their team over the next decade, starting now. To keep the media and the fan base on his side for the long term, Guerrero must perform, and surely he understands that and embraces the challenge. I’m not suggesting that people will turn on him by next week if he doesn’t start hitting home runs, but fans have 500 million reasons to expect than what he’s produced so far.

Secondly, for Guerrero, he probably also understands that the Blue Jays remain in an important transitional period of their franchise history, despite locking him up to be their franchise face for the next 14 years.

Right now, the Blue Jays are built to win, and the evidence is in their franchise record payroll. However, if they struggle and miss the playoffs by a wide margin again in 2025 as they did last year, that could impact the direction of this team in a few ways. First, it likely means that Ross Atkins and/or Mark Shapiro wouldn’t be at the helm of the front office anymore, and secondly, it could impact what happens with impending free agents over the next two seasons, such as Bichette, Chris Bassitt, Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios (potential opt out), and more.

As for Santander, the slugging switch-hitter hasn’t exactly started off the way anyone was hoping for, and is still waiting for some opportunities to endear himself to a new fan base.

That’s important as any player starts a new chapter in a different city, but Santander also wants to prove that he was worth the money spent on his contract, and show his new employer that he’ll be part of the long-term solution along with Guerrero Jr. and his new contract. There’s no doubt that Santander came to Toronto to compete, and he surely understands that he needs to be among the core pieces of this team that make it happen.

The Blue Jays begin an important three-game series with the Yankees on Friday night, and follow that up with three more against the Red Sox, so the next week or so will have some significant implications on the early-season standings in the AL East. Here’s hoping the lineup in general can find a spark, and more specifically, that their top three hitters can start leading the way.

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