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It’s the little things that keep sinking the Blue Jays
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Photo credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images
Ian Hunter
Jun 25, 2026, 16:00 EDTUpdated: Jun 25, 2026, 15:28 EDT
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When you’re a team among the bottom-third in baseball in runs scored per game, there is a slim margin for error. And yet time and time again, the Toronto Blue Jays keep shooting themselves in the foot.
Last night’s 3-1 loss to the Houston Astros illustrated another example of a Blue Jays squad that has failed to play solid fundamental baseball. On three occasions, the Blue Jays served up game-changing plays on a silver platter to the Astros.
The two standouts were the botched pickoff attempt at third base by Jeff Hoffman and Kazuma Okamoto in the eighth, then there was Luis Urias getting doubled up off second base, but Daulton Varsho’s misplay of a ball in centre field also came back to bite the Blue Jays.
Let’s start with the least egregious of the three: Varsho’s bobble of Joey Loperfido’s double to deep centre field.
It’s a small miracle that the ball stayed in the yard, and with a .840 expected batting average, it had extra bases written all over it. But Varsho couldn’t grab the ball in time, which allowed Loperfido to take the extra base.
Two pitches later, with the go-ahead run on third base with one out, for some reason, Hoffman attempted to pick off Loperfido at third base, but sailed the throw wide, allowing the Astros to score the go-ahead run.
Manager John Schneider later said that Okamoto may have missed the sign, but when Schneider said, “It’s a play we haven’t run often,” that should be a massive red flag.
The risk-reward for that type of play — especially with a severe lack of offense in that game — made little sense, and the juice was not worth the squeeze.
It’s not an apples-to-apples situation, but if you’ll recall, the Dodgers didn’t execute a pickoff or back-pick play in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of last year’s World Series, even though Isiah Kiner-Falefa was hugging the base as though the Dodgers had that play on. But I digress.
Crossed wires can be forgiven, although in retrospect, it wasn’t the right play to begin with. However, another play cannot be forgiven: Urias getting doubled up off second base to end a rally in the eighth inning.
I saw the play unfold live at Rogers Centre, and thought it was bad at the time, but upon closer inspection, it’s much more egregious than I expected.
The maddening part for the Blue Jays is that Urias was tracking the ball 99 percent of the way and was doing everything correctly. But the moment the ball landed in Cam Smith’s glove, that’s when Urias committed to running.
Credit to Smith, as it was a tremendous catch, but at the very least, Urias should’ve easily advanced to third base on the play. Instead, he pulled an Addison Barger in Game 6 of the World Series and got nailed at second base, and the play wasn’t even close.
Mistakes happen, and every player should be given some grace. But these are plays that simply have to be executed at the big league level. Especially considering how much difficulty the Blue Jays have had scoring runs this season, they can’t afford to kill their own rallies.
It’s surprising the Astros only scored three runs, as they stranded ten baserunners and went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position.
Meanwhile, the night after the Blue Jays stranded 13 baserunners and went 3 for 14 with runners in scoring position on Tuesday, Toronto could barely get a rally going against one of the worst starting pitchers in the American League on Wednesday Mike Burrows leads the American League in earned runs.
But we’re not having discussions about fundamentals if the Blue Jays are scoring runs. You can paper over a lot of defects with some timely hitting from your biggest players, which the Jays have received little of in the first half.
So, if their identity is going to shift from being a low-strikeout, high-contact team to a low-strikeout, low-contact team, the Blue Jays can’t afford to be making multiple blunders in the field and on the base paths.

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