The Toronto Blue Jays’ 2026 campaign started with as much as excitement as any in the 21st century for the team: playing in their 50th anniversary season and coming off a historic playoffs that ended in Game 7 of the World Series, expectations were through the roof.
The early returns on the field have been everything but exciting for the fans - the Blue Jays dropped their third consecutive contest on Saturday to fall to 4-4, with sloppy base running and defence hurting the team once again.
In the top of the seventh inning trailing 4-2, the Blue Jays had the bases loaded with Nathan Lukes at the plate and superstar slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. - who homered earlier in the game - standing on deck.
Lukes sent a ball into the sky in right field which was caught and allowed Myles Straw to tag up at third base and score on a sacrifice fly. Catcher Tyler Heineman also tagged up on the play at second and was thrown out at third base after the throw home was cut off by first baseman Munetaka Murakami. That out ended the inning instead of giving Guerrero a chance to do some more damage with multiple runners on.
“We can’t do that. It’s as simple as that,” Schneider told reporters after the game. “Heineman knows that. Everyone in the dugout and everyone in the stands probably knows that.”
Heineman was at the heart of the Jays’ defeat in extras on Friday as well, as he came on to replace Alejandro Kirk defensively in the bottom of the 10th after Kirk was forced out of the game with a fractured thumb. Heineman fielded a soft bunt with two out and the Blue Jays leading 4-3, but could not make an accurate throw to first. The tying run scored on the error before the White Sox were able to walk it off one batter later.
As the old adage goes, ‘you can’t win your division in April, but you can certainly lose it,’ and the Blue Jays have now lost back-to-back series against the Colorado Rockies and White Sox - the two worst teams in the major leagues over the past two seasons.
“Those mistakes cannot happen. Whether it’s April, October or November. Those mistakes can’t happen.”
Schneider recognized that this Blue Jays team has not looked like the successful team that took the field in the second half of the season in 2025.
“We’re eight games into the season and I feel like we’ve had some games that scream ‘not us,’” Schneider said. “And when we play ‘us,’ we’re good.
“We’ve got to get back to it. There have been some things that are magnified. The more you dwell on it and the more you say ‘woe is me,’ the worse you’re going to get. They’re very well aware of the standard that is set here and the expectations that we hold.”
The Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead in the top of the sixth inning when Guerrero launched a two-run homer to deep left for his first of the season. That lead was promptly surrendered by lefty reliever Brendon Little in the bottom of the sixth as his brutal start to the season continued.
Little left a hanging sinker over the heart of the plate to Murakami, who smashed a two-run homer to deep centre field, then threw another sinker over the middle of the plate to Colson Montgomery two batters later that was sent out for another home run.
Little took a blown save and a loss and spiked his earned-run average to 24.55 through five outings.
“We’ve got to figure it out,” Schneider said about Little’s ongoing struggles. “We’re going to try to put the best team out there every single day, so we’ll definitely sit down and talk about it.”
One option still available for the team is a reset for Little in Triple A. Little has one option remaining, which could be used to demote the struggling pitcher to get his head right. Little was brilliant in the regular season before struggling in the playoffs in 2025, as he led the American League with 79 appearances and finished with a sterling 3.03 ERA.
Nothing has gone right for the Blue Jays in the early days of this season that began with such high expectations. After averaging the fourth-most runs per game in the majors a season ago (4.93), the Blue Jays sit in the bottom half of the league rankings at 4.25 this year. Four starting pitchers (Trey Yesavage, Jose Berrios, Shane Bieber and Cody Ponce) are on the Injured List in the second week of the season. The defensive and base-running miscues have only made things look worse.
It’s also fair to point out that the 2025 Blue Jays certainly had eight-game stretches of play that looked worse than this. With higher expectations comes a higher standard, and Schneider has kept that in mind early on this year.
“We’ve set the tone here to what we expect,” Schneider said. “And if you’re not doing it, someone else will get a chance to do it.”
