TORONTO – Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider resisted the temptation to employ Anthony Santander as a ninth-inning pinch-hitter on Friday.<\/p>\n
Schneider gave his struggling slugger a day off partly to rest a sore shoulder and partly to reset after a series against the Tampa Bay Rays in which he went 1 for 12 with five strikeouts.<\/p>\n
“His shoulder was a little bit cranky still,” Schneider said. “So I didn’t want to force him in there if he couldn’t.”<\/p>\n
With two on and two out, and the Blue Jays behind a run, Santander was kept on the bench in favour of pinch-hitter Ernie Clement.<\/p>\n
Clement grounded out to Detroit reliever Beau Brieske for the final out for a 5-4 win for the American League-leading Tigers.<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old Santander went 0 for 3 against Brieske in 2024.<\/p>\n
Schneider wanted to give his newcomer a complete day off to rest and reset.<\/p>\n
The free-agent acquisition has struggled with a .187 average, five homers and 16 RBI after a career-best 44 homers in 2024.<\/p>\n
“I kind of wanted to stay away from him, unless it was something like Myles Straw got a migraine, too,” said Schneider, whose starting right-fielder, Nathan Lukes, was forced out of the game with a migraine.<\/p>\n
Straw replaced Lukes in the seventh inning.<\/p>\n
Schneider felt that because Santander didn’t go through his usual preparation to play, it wasn’t fair to put him into the ninth-inning heat.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of a double negative if that makes sense,” Schneider said.<\/p>\n
Varsho homers<\/p>\n
In just 12 games, Daulton Varsho has snatched the Blue Jays’ home-run lead from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Varsho belted a two-run shot in the sixth inning for his sixth of the year.<\/p>\n
“It’s good for him, better for us,” Schneider said.<\/p>\n
Francis’ fight<\/p>\n
Toronto starter Bowden Francis has given up 14 home runs this season after the two dingers by Riley Greene and Zach McKinstry. It’s the most allowed by a pitcher in Major League Baseball so far this season.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 16, 2025.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO – Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider resisted the temptation to employ Anthony Santander as a ninth-inning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2309,5,2316,2313,2325,754,53,2335,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2327,2321,185,2311,2312],"class_list":{"0":"post-33302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-baseball-competitions","11":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","12":"tag-baseball-teams","13":"tag-bowden-francis","14":"tag-detroit-tigers","15":"tag-home-run","16":"tag-major-league-baseball","17":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","18":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","19":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","23":"tag-mlb","24":"tag-mlb-playoffs","25":"tag-mlb-postseason","26":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","27":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-team-sports","30":"tag-turf-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302","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=33302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}