The evidence has been all over the field for the Toronto Blue Jays this season. Despite not having the most eye-popping names up and down their lineup, they entered October as the No. 1 seed in the American League and now have a stranglehold on the defending AL champions in the division series.
How have the AL East champion Blue Jays done it all season? The answer is simple:
They’ve been having fun.
“Yeah, I feel like we have a bunch of just young dudes at heart,” said Blue Jays outfielder Davis Schneider before Game 3 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium. “We have a lot of old heads, even George [Springer]. George is 36, but he acts like he’s 12, which is great. You want a leader that leads by example but also learn how to have fun. He does that too.
“Even Vlady. He’s only 26, but he acts like he’s been here 20 years, which is what you want as a leader too. Everyone is on the same page of having fun, and whatever happens happens out on the field.”
The Jays are equipped with tremendous talent at the top with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette (who is off the ALDS roster with a knee injury) and MVP-candidate George Springer after his re-emergent 2025. The team ranked third in OPS and earned a bit of a scrappy identity throughout the season.
That identity has its leader feeling like he’s watching another edition of a classic baseball movie.
“I think [the team was always having fun], but you kind of saw it unfold over the course of the season, where you can grasp onto any narrative that is out there, right?,” said manager John Schneider. “But I think that that’s been apparent for a while now. That’s been apparent that’s what they’re doing for a while now.
“I joked with [bench coach] Donny [Mattingly] and [pitching coach] Pete [Walker], sometimes it feels like the movie ‘The Sandlot,’ they’re just coming in playing. I think if you can embrace that, it’s pretty cool, because ultimately, if you want to get to where you want to get to, it’s just going to get more and more magnified and more and more tense. It’s been like that for a while with this group, which is pretty cool.”
Toronto, specifically, has had a lot of fun playing against the Yankees. They walked into the Bronx holding a commanding 2-0 series lead on Tuesday night in the best-of-five ALDS after dominating them for most of their regular season matchups, going 8-5 in their 13 games.
While they may not have the star power of the Aaron Judge-led Yankees, the Blue Jays have shown exactly why they are in this position.
