TORONTO — Chase DeLauter sighed when asked about his at-bat. Kyle Schwarber chuckled before regaling his experience. Those are the sort of reactions you get when asking hitters what it’s like to face Toronto Blue Jays reliever Tyler Rogers.

His knuckle-scrapping delivery is unlike any other pitcher’s in MLB right now. Rogers’ release point, just 15 inches off the ground, is easily the lowest in baseball.

“He’s just a funky cat,” Delauter said.

Rogers throws just 83 miles per hour, yet his ERA (1.73) is sixth-lowest among regular relievers. Alongside Spencer Miles and Louis Varland, he’s given the Jays one of the best bullpen back ends in baseball. So, over the course of the season, The Athletic asked opposing batters why the submariner is so difficult.

What’s it actually like facing Tyler Rogers?

Guardians OF Chase Delauter, 0/1 with a strikeout

Delauter’s first and only experience against Rogers lasted less than a minute. The Cleveland rookie watched three straight pitches, all perfectly placed on the outside corner, clip the zone for a rapid strikeout. After the final called strike, he stood up in the box and began a slow walk back to the bench.

His plan, Delauter said after the late-April at-bat, was to stand in the box and try to play wiffle ball. He just wanted to see something up in the zone and lash at it. Rogers, who throws 31.4 percent of his pitches to the bottom third of the zone or lower, didn’t give him a shot.

Rogers’ velocity, Delauter said, didn’t feel like 83 miles per hour at all. The pitches came in fast, catching the rookie off guard. He’d faced one submariner before in his baseball life, but it wasn’t from the same low arm slot as Rogers’. The prior experience didn’t help much.

“That guy was throwing from his shoelace,” Delauter said. “Definitely very new for me.”

Rockies OF Troy Johnston, 0/1 with a fly out

There aren’t many power pitchers in the Pacific Northwest, Johnston said, so he grew up in Seattle facing plenty of submarine pitchers. He used to practice, on occasion, for the low arm-slot matchups, asking a coach to toss hard underhand flips to him from a few feet away. In the big leagues, he said, when you face a submariner just once or twice a season, it’s hardly worth training for.

Rogers is also different from most submariners he’s faced, Johnston said. The weird-release relievers often struggle to find the strike zone. Jays sidearm reliever Chase Lee, for example, has thrown 45.7 percent of his pitches in the zone this year. Former Toronto lowballer Adam Cimber had a 53.2 percent career zone rate. Rogers is at 56.1 percent for his career.

Johnston’s plan was to take Rogers’ first pitch, get an idea of what he was working with, and then go down swinging. That first pitch, though, was right down the middle. Rogers elevated the next offering and drew an easy fly out.

The Colorado sophomore said he was freaked out before the second pitch. Toronto’s centre fielder moved just behind Rogers’ release point after the opening offering, and with the Jays wearing white jerseys that day it made the reliever’s pitch difficult to track.

“I don’t know if they did it on purpose,” Johnston said. “Maybe it’s a good game plan.”

Rogers, asked about it later, said it wasn’t intentional, though he joked it could become a strategy.

Tyler Rogers, White Castle Special. 🤮🍔🍔🍔 pic.twitter.com/5cEpa7WnVa

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 12, 2026

Phillies DH Kyle Schwarber, 3/6 with a home run and two walks

Schwarber has eight big league plate appearances against Rogers and they also faced off in college, when the reliever was at Austin Peay. Maybe that’s why Schwarber is responsible for one of just 29 MLB homers Rogers has allowed in 491 2/3 innings? The Phillies DH doesn’t think so.

“I kind of just ran into it,” Schwarber said, “to be honest with you.”

The homer came in May 2024, when Rogers was pitching for the San Francisco Giants. After Schwarber swung through a first-pitch slider, Rogers’ next offering was a little higher and a little more middle. It was right in Schwarber’s power zone, as the lefty slugger turned on the pitch and drove it off the right-field foul pole.

The movement on Rogers’ pitches is so unique, Schwarber said, that his main tactic is to pick the ball up as early as possible during his release. The reliever’s slider seems to rise, Schwarber said, while his sinker appears to jump up and dive down in rapid succession. Schwarber is just trying to pick up the ball and get a pitch in the air. He’s been pretty successful at it, so far.

Astros OF Daulton Varsho, 2/10 with a double

Before he became teammates with Rogers for the first half of this season, Varsho faced off against him plenty when they were both in the National League West. It’s Rogers’ command of his funky arsenal, Varsho said, that makes him more difficult than other comparable relievers.

“It’s not like he’s just up there throwing it wherever it goes,” Varsho said. “Locating it with that arm angle. That’s what makes him more impressive.”

Even with just a single and double off Rogers in 10 at-bats, Varsho is more successful than most. Like Schwarber, his key is to pick the ball up as quickly as possible. Rogers drops his torso during his release, cocking his right arm way back above his body before hooking it down to the ground. The rapidly moving parts add a level of deception on top of his unique release point.

After plenty of at-bats, though, Varsho says he knows what he’s doing now. He walks to the plate with eyes on a specific spot to pick up the ball.

“I know where to look,” Varsho said.

While with the Jays, Varsho declined to share exactly where that spot is. He’s probably told his new Houston Astros teammates by now, though.

Blue Jays beat Tigers, clinging on in wild-card race

It was a game the Jays had to win, outfielder Myles Straw said after the game. After dropping five of their last seven contests, including the first two against the Detroit Tigers, the Jays avoided a sweep with a 5-1 victory on Wednesday.

The win, aided by several Detroit misplays and five solid innings from Max Scherzer, pulled the Jays within 1.5 games of the Chicago White Sox for the American League’s final wild-card spot. With the Guardians’ series win over the Sox, Cleveland jumped Chicago. It means the Jays are now chasing the White Sox in the playoff race and Chicago owns a potential tiebreaker over Toronto.

The Jays are also now neck-and-neck with the Texas Rangers, who also own the tiebreaker against them. Each of Toronto’s final nine games is massive if the team hopes to make the playoffs, but a three-game series at Texas this weekend is essentially a must-win for Toronto to jump ahead of the Rangers and continue chasing whatever AL Central team is closest.

Here are the remaining schedules for the teams near and above Toronto in the wild-card race:

Rangers: 3 vs TOR, 3 vs NYM, 3 @ MIN
White Sox: 4 vs DET, 3 @ KC, 3 vs COL
Guardians: 3 vs ATH, 3 @ BOS, 3 @ KC