{"id":150610,"date":"2025-07-04T05:04:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T05:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/150610\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T05:04:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T05:04:19","slug":"several-jays-play-a-role-in-surge-up-standings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/150610\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Jays play a role in surge up standings"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013 Contributions from all four corners of the Toronto Blue Jays roster have played a massive role in their two-month ascension to the top spot in the American League East.<\/p>\n

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There were many examples of different players leading the way in the Blue Jays\u2019 first four-game home sweep of the division-rival New York Yankees in team history.<\/p>\n

Deadlocked in the fourth inning of the series finale on Thursday, a dogged Nathan Lukes endured a 14-pitch at-bat to poke a two-run double down the left-field line that sparked the home side to an 8-5 win before 36,848 at Rogers Centre.<\/p>\n

With Bo Bichette nursing a sore knee, Lukes was the third different player Toronto manager John Schneider employed in the leadoff role in the series after Ernie Clement and Andres Gimenez took turns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an at-bat where you can look back three, four days from now, a month from now, and say, \u2018that wasn\u2019t just an at-bat that helped us win this game,’\u201d said George Springer, who continued his hot hitting with a pair of two-run homers to bring his season total to a team-leading 15.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor him to keep going, to keep grinding, fighting off pitch after pitch after pitch, and not have a timeout after the fifth pitch was unbelievable.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s an at-bat where he completely flipped the script.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays flipped their script back in early May. They have gone 32-18 since May 8 with only the Houston Astros enjoying a better record at 34-17.<\/p>\n

Chris Bassitt (8-4), who tossed a gusty 113-pitch outing in the series finale, believes the team\u2019s culture has been the difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I would say the culture that we\u2019ve been able to build here,\u201d Bassitt said. \u201cIt\u2019s taken a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re getting rewarded for playing the game the right way and playing the game hard, not much more than that. I think it\u2019s an old-school approach of how to play the game. Obviously, we have a lot of talented guys in the room, so you have a lot of talented guys playing the way that we\u2019re playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Addison Barger also has chipped in since being promoted from triple-A Buffalo. He homered for the second straight game, increasing his total to 11, and finished the series finale 3 for 4 with two RBI to help the Blue Jays extend their win streak to a season-high tying five games.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat he\u2019s done for us this series was great,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cSince he\u2019s been up here, he\u2019s been damn good and has added a dynamic to our lineup that we desperately needed. You need stories like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider\u2019s team also wouldn\u2019t be in first place without the leadership and the comeback season from Springer. The 35-year-old was coming off a poor 2024 and endured a horrible spring training, too.<\/p>\n

In his last 11 games, Springer has batted 20 for 39 (.513) with four homers, 19 RBI, 14 runs scored, six walks and three stolen bases.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m never going to count George Springer out of anything until he hangs up his cleats,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cWhenever that is don\u2019t know. I hope it\u2019s not for a couple of years. I love that he\u2019s here. He\u2019s proven time and time again that he\u2019s one of the best players in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2013 Contributions from all four corners of the Toronto Blue Jays roster have played a massive role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,10864,2554,4,185,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-150610","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-blue-jays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-blue-jays","10":"tag-blue-jays-baseball","11":"tag-bluejays","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-toronto","15":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","16":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114793222316413923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}