{"id":661310,"date":"2026-04-03T18:42:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661310\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:42:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:42:29","slug":"barger-varsho-among-blue-jays-off-to-slow-starts-offensively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661310\/","title":{"rendered":"Barger, Varsho among Blue Jays off to slow starts offensively"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays own a 4-2 record six games into the young 2026 season. Their starting pitching has been fantastic, most of their relievers have pitched well; yet, their offense isn\u2019t quite firing on all cylinders after carrying the team for much of last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez and newcomer Kazuma Okamoto<\/a> have come out of the gate swinging hot bats, several mainstays in the lineup have struggled in the early going\u2014with lefty sluggers Addison Barger and Daulton Varsho chief among them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Barger is hitless through 13 at-bats to open the campaign, while Varsho has just one hit in his last 10 trips to the plate. Neither has looked like their usual dangerous selves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that it\u2019s still incredibly early. The best hitters in the game endure multiple stretches such as these throughout the regular season. Still, this duo\u2019s early struggles do come as somewhat of a surprise, given they both tore the cover off the ball throughout spring training. Something appears to have been lost in translation from exhibition games to the beginning of meaningful play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays haven\u2019t exactly been facing elite pitching, either. The Athletics and Colorado Rockies<\/a> fielded two of baseball\u2019s worst pitching staffs in 2025, and neither group projects to be much better this season. The likes of Luis Severino and Ryan Feltner aren\u2019t exactly comparable to Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While none of them have been elite, the Blue Jays have faced several left-handed starters. That has likely contributed to Barger and Varsho\u2019s slow starts, given their known struggles against same-handed pitchers. Facing a few right-handed pitchers in a row should help them both get into a better rhythm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just them scuffling, either. Alejandro Kirk hasn\u2019t done much outside of his game-tying home run against the Athletics on Saturday. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has yet to record an extra-base hit, either. Just about everyone on the team has struggled with runners in scoring position.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The great news for the Blue Jays is that they\u2019ve already managed to win four games despite these slow starts. Last year\u2019s team, with its inferior pitching, likely wouldn\u2019t have been able to scratch out these wins if the offence was this cold. It bodes extremely well for the rest of the season when these talented hitters start hitting as well as they can<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baseball is a marathon\u2014Barger and Varsho don\u2019t need to have come out sprinting to ultimately win the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CHECK OUT OFF THE ROSTER \u2013 NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEKDAY\"\"<\/a>Off The Roster is Toronto sports. Hosted by Cabbie Richards, Lindsay Dunn, and Dan Riccio, this is the go-to morning conversation for everything happening in the 6ix \u2013 Hockey, Baseball, Basketball and everything in between. From breakout performances and questionable trades to throwback jerseys, viral moments, and the stories fans are actually talking about\u2014it\u2019s smart, sharp, and never scripted. Live weekday mornings on the Nation Network YouTube channel<\/a> and available wherever you stream podcasts, the show delivers real opinions, real chemistry, and real Toronto energy. Missed an episode? Catch up anytime. Off The Roster\u2014The new sound of the 6ix.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Blue Jays own a 4-2 record six games into the young 2026 season. Their starting pitching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2378],"tags":[5,377,2554,4,282,70,2553],"class_list":{"0":"post-661310","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-bluejays","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-blue-jays","14":"tag-torontobluejays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116342250805100168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661310","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=661310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}