Blue Jays start season with their sights on the World Series
After being two outs away from winning the World Series, the Blue Jays, champions of the American League, open the season against the Athletics.
For the first time in 33 years, the Toronto Blue Jays enter a season as the defending champions of the American League and, better yet, in a great position to challenge the best teams in the Major League Baseball (MLB) and try to complete the job they couldn’t last season.
The Blue Jays Canadians host the Athletics at the Rogers Center in Toronto in the opening of their 50th season in the American major leagues. Dominican right-hander Luis Severino starts for the visitors and right-hander Kevin Gausman for the locals. Both pitchers were in the World Baseball Classic with Dominican Republic and USArespectively.
Last season, Toronto won its first East Division title since 2015 and arrived at the World Series for the first time since winning the only championships in its history, in 1992 and 1993. Toronto had the same record as the New York Yankees (94-68), but received the division pennant for having won the particular series during the season.
The Blue Jays, who returned on fall classic home with a 3-2 lead against the champion Los Angeles Dodgers, entered the ninth inning of the seventh and decisive game winning 4-3, when Venezuelan infielder Miguel Rojas hit a dramatic home run against closer Jeff Hoffman, with one out, to tie the score.
In the eleventh inning, catcher Will Smith homered against Shane Bieber with two outs to give Los Angeles the lead for the first time in the game, and Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who started and won the previous game, got the last eight outs to score the victory.
Far from being intimidated, the Blue Jays were very active in the winter market to keep up with expectations, first in their division and then in the rest of MLB.
Toronto lost infielder Bo Bichette in free agency, who went to the New York Mets, but acquired star pitcher Dylan Cease for seven years and $175 million, Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto– a six-time All-Star in his country’s league– for four years and $60 million, starting pitcher Cody Ponce– the Most Valuable Player of the South Korean League in 2025– for three years and $30 million, and submarine reliever Tyler Rogers for three years and $37 million.
Additionally, Toronto brought back right-handed pitcher Max Scherzer, a future Hall of Famer, on the market for one year and $3 million, plus incentives. Scherzer, 41, won game four of the American League Championship Series against the Seattle Mariners and started the seventh and decisive game of the World Series.
Scherzer could be vital early in the season with the starters José Berríos, Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber on the injured list.
Gausman, Cease, Scherzer, Ponce and Eric Lauer will form the rotation, as the injured return, while Hoffman and Rogers lead a bullpen that will not have the Dominican in the first days. Yimi Garcia.
The Blue Jays offense is led by Dominican first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who hit .397 with eight home runs, five doubles and 16 RBIs in 18 games last postseason.
The five-time first baseman All Stars He is one of the solid candidates that the American League to try to dethrone the Yankees’ Aaron Judge as the Most Valuable Player of the circuit.
Okamoto, Mexican catcher Alejandro Kirk, designated hitter George Springer and outfielders Daulton Varsho and Addison Barger are the main complements in the Canadians’ offense.
According DraftKingswhich serves the official betting lines to AM850only the Yankees (10-1) and the Mariners (12-1) are better positioned than Toronto (16-1) in the American League to dethrone the Dodgers from the top of the industry. DraftKings also projects that the Blue Jays will win about 89 games, behind only the Yankees (90.5) in their division.
The Major League season is very long and the performance of the clubs is tied to the ability of their main stars to recover from injuries. In the case of the Blue Jays, the great depth they built up in the winter, especially in starting pitching, makes the illusion of being one of the last teams standing at the end of this season very real.
