Big Series

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Thie  Series of the Season begins Monday night in Toronto at the Rogers Centre, the first of three games between the Blue Jays and Yankees.

After all the made up hoopla of last week, the fake swing-off, the metric-based Home Run Derby, an All-Star game that for the first time in the history of the All-Star Game, there was neither a winning pitcher or a losing pitcher, and the All-Star MVP did nothing of note in the actual game – you know it was all fake baseball… fake is quite the specialty in the Rob Manfred Era – there are actually real baseball games, a real series that means something the next three days in Toronto.

No, it is not just Banana Ball Baseball for a change, all glitz and Funtime Entertainment, there are consequences to real games. Frankly, that is a nice change – and baseball, and MLB could use a little more competition and less red carpet. Leave that to Hollywood.

The Yankees have talked themselves up as kings of the AL East all season, yet they find themselves three full games behind the first-place Blue Jays. Toronto has not delivered much success in Canada since, well, basically 1993 when the Joe Carter Blue Jays won their second straight World Series.

It has been so bad that the Blue Jays have not even won a playoff game – not even a silly wild card game – since 2016. The Blue Jays were a huge disappointment last season finishing in last place 20 games behind the Yankees so things had to change, and they did to Toronto’s credit, much more on that later in The Story.

The Blue Jays have labeled their hitting approach under new hitting coach David Popkins as “selective aggression.”.

Kevin Gausman will be on the mound for the Blue Jays Monday night with Carlos Rodon starting for the pitching-thin Yankees. The Blue Jays have finally come together as a team and have won 10 straight home games, including four straight against the Yankees at the start of July that turned the Yankees upside down. It’s been a rough ride for the Yankees since – and they finally salvaged some dignity beating the inept Braves two of three in Atlanta with Aaron Judge hitting the 351st home run of his career Sunday at Truist Park.

I have to give credit where credit is due, and the Blue Jays have made some significant institutional changes in their hitting approach, and they are a team that makes contact in a hitting world where it is always “swing from your ass, and ask questions later’’ and they also pick their moments to go big.

“The Yankees need to win two out of three,’’ one top evaluator told BallNine on Sunday.

The Blue Jays have labeled their hitting approach under new hitting coach David Popkins as “selective aggression.’’

There are times you sell out for power, but it is vital to put the ball in play, too, use all fields and keep the line moving: you know, baseball.

The hitters have bought-in to this philosophy because they see it works and it also worked for the Twins when Popkins was with them for three seasons.

The Blue Jays also did the wise money thing and signed their superstar Vlad Guerrero Jr. to a 14-year, $500 million extension in early April. That essentially kept Vlad Jr. from becoming a head case and having the pressure of producing to get that big contract as a free agent. He can now just do his thing and let his talents shine through. He had been producing – but not in power ways so it could have gotten ugly if he was not hitting for power and was going to be a free agent, as a hitter he would have been digging  himself a deeper and deeper hole.

One thing is clear in baseball, 2025. If you are labeled a superstar, and also have a team buy-in, teams must keep you around. If you don’t, you wind up traded like Rafael Devers, who was sent to San Francisco.

The Blue Jays finished off a sweep of the Giants with an 8-6 victory on Sunday and Devers is now hitting .208 as a Giant. It hasn’t been pretty. Vlad Jr. crushed his first home run since June 29th in the first inning, hitting a Robbie Ray hanger 420 feet. Guerrero is hitting .278 with 58 walks (third best in MLB) so he is doing a lot right, but the home run was only his 13th of the season. Consider that Aaron Judge hit his 36th home run on Sunday in the 4-2 win over the Braves. Judge’s first inning home run came on a thigh-high 93-mph fastball while Guerrero Jr’s home run came on an 81-mph knuckle curve, down the middle.

I have been watching baseball a long time and I can say I have never seen more hanging breaking balls hit for home runs than in 2025. The overall lack of command is incredible even though fans are being told pitching has never been better. Yes, certain pitches thrown these days are terrific and hard to handle, but pitchers are leaving mistakes over the middle of the plate on a consistent basis, fastballs and breaking balls, and batters still miss them because they are being over-aggressive.

That’s why the Blue Jays new hitting style – call it a system if you want – is so intriguing. Blue Jays manager John Schneider told reporters after the win on Sunday of that team hitting approach, “It’s not having one guy try to do more than he can. I think we’ve done a really good job of that throughout the season. I want guys to kind of just be who they are.’’

George Springer has taken to the new style as well and seems much more relaxed and selective at the plate. He is batting .279 and blasted his 17th home run of the season in the fifth inning off Ray that sparked a four-run inning and the comeback win. The Blue Jays have 29 comeback wins this season and that’s certainly impressive. They had to come back right from the start because in the first inning left fielder Davis Schneider lost a pop fly in the sun and actually ran away from the ball. It should be noted that with the roof open, he never bothered to use his glove to help shield the sun on the high popup. No fundies.

That led to an immediate run, but the Blue Jays are doing the job offensively. They struck out only five times in the game and only 13 times in the three-game series.

The Blue Jays have the fewest strikeouts in all of baseball with only 661 Ks in this Age of the K. The Yankees have the eighth-most strikeouts in the game with 864, so the Blue Jays have 203 fewer strikeouts than the Bombers. The Rockies (of course) have the most strikeouts in MLB with 964 – so that is a cool 303 more than the Blue Jays.

Put the ball in play and so many good things happen; you have a three-game lead over the Yankees heading into the final march before the trade deadline. The Blue Jays lead all of baseball in batting average with a .261 mark. The Yankees are fourth at .256. The White Sox are the worst in baseball with a pitiful .223 mark.

Just for fun consider that the 1919 White Sox, yes, the Black Sox, led baseball in batting average with a .287 mark.

Popkins’ hitting philosophy centers around the idea that great teams can beat you in a variety of ways and just before the season started, he boldly said, “We are trying to become the most creative lineup at scoring runs in baseball. We do that by practicing all of the different situations and clubs we that we’re going to need in the game.’’

Yes, he said clubs, as in golf clubs.

Popkins believes different situations call for different clubs, like a seven-iron, pitching wedge, driver. So yes, he wants contact, but don’t lose your aggressiveness and take that big swing when the moment is right.

That is a much different philosophy than taking your “A’’ swing every time.

And by A swing, I mean swinging from your ass.

Baseball is a game where there is a time and a place for everything, that is what makes it such a beautiful game. There are times to swing for the home run, but there are also times where you hit the ball the other way to keep a rally going. In other words, everything is not metrics based, everything is not exit-velocity based. There are a number of major league hitting coaches, I believe, who think this way, but that is not always encouraged by the NIC, Nerds In Charge.

Baseball is about balance, hitting is about balance, in so many ways. It is not just about damage swings. Damage swings are great when they work – but there are times you need what I call a baseball swing, put the ball in play. And you certainly can’t go overboard in either direction. There has to be a mix of attack and that is why the golf club approach is interesting and is definitely working for the Blue Jays.

The Yankees, meanwhile, believe they are starting fresh after the All-Star break and want to show that the four-game sweep they suffered in Toronto is not the real Yankees.

In their minds, it is payback time.

All that makes for a great setup to a series. And like the man said, the Yankees need to win two out of three in this series.

Judge noted after home run No. 351 that tied him with Alex Rodriguez for sixth place on the all-time home run list for the Yankees: “This was a big series win, especially going into Toronto, It’s a good time to start getting hot.’’

Now we have a series worth watching, the Series of the Season so far.