DETROIT — When you’re hot, you’re hot. It’s like the Blue Jays are finding fun new ways to win games just to keep themselves entertained.
They’ve found an identity in this style of offense that goes drip, drip, boom. Thursday night’s opener at Comerica Park in Detroit was skipping along without much of a story, but then the Tigers decided that they wanted a piece of Ernie Clement. Well, Clement gave them a full serving.
Two pitches after Addison Barger was intentionally walked to put runners on the corners with two outs, Clement launched a three-run shot, a no-doubter to left field that broke the game wide open. He scampered up the first-base line with his bat pointed straight out in front of him, and 10 steps in, flicked his wrists into the cool, casual bat flip. Be careful what you wish for.
Even when someone makes the right move, the Blue Jays can make a better one.
Toronto’s 11-4 blowout win is another statement in a month full of them, this one putting them atop the American League with a 61-42 record. The days of this being baseball’s plucky surprise story are dead and gone. The Blue Jays aren’t just postseason contenders, they’re giant killers. After beating the Yankees at home — again — they handled one of the AL’s other powerhouses without breaking a sweat. This is what momentum looks like.
“Ernie likes a challenge and he likes sticking his nose right in the middle of stuff,” manager John Schneider said.
The moment Clement was asked about it, that smile started to creep across his face again. He loves this.
“I want that. I want that challenge, for sure,” Clement said. “I want that at-bat. If they’re going to walk him to face me, I’m ready.”
It’s coming from such unexpected places, too, but perhaps we’re overdue to change how we talk about these Blue Jays. Sure, Eric Lauer was just expected to be Triple-A depth after he got hit around in the Minor Leagues and ended up in Korea last year, but Thursday’s dominant outing is nothing new. It’s nearly August now, and the breakout lefty just keeps proving that he’s one of the most important pitchers on this staff. Lauer isn’t a flash in the pan, he’s a legitimate piece of a playoff-bound rotation.
Lauer was incredibly efficient, too, burning through his early innings to give the Blue Jays eight innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts, his only blemish being a solo shot in the first. If you really dig down on the definition of “valuable,” Lauer is a legitimate candidate for the Blue Jays’ MVP Award through the first four months, single-handedly saving them from what could have been a messy run without Max Scherzer and Bowden Francis at different points. It’s a cranked-up version of what Ross Stripling did for this organization in 2022.
“I can’t say enough about it. He’s our unsung MVP, there’s no doubt about it,” Clement said. “He gives us a chance to win every time and then some. It’s special what he’s doing.”
Schneider joked that if he was living in a world without Lauer, he’d have a lot more grays in his beard. This has been a manager’s dream, saving Schneider from the weekly game of who to start, which relievers to save and how to answer the daily questions about those never-ending decisions.
Lauer has sunk into this, too. He belongs.
“It’s a lot of fun coming to the ballpark every day. This is just a fun bunch of guys to be around,” Lauer said, “from the staff to the players. It’s just a great clubhouse. Everybody is jiving together and we’re having a lot of fun together. Winning makes everything better. We’re going to keep going as much as we can. This makes baseball fun. Baseball is fun when you win.”
These good days never last forever — just look at the reeling Tigers — but the Blue Jays just keep riding this wave. Every time they run up on what could be a letdown game, they do the exact opposite. After a big, emotional series win over the Yankees in front of three sold-out crowds at home, a dud down the road in hot, humid Detroit wouldn’t have shocked anyone.
That’s not the 2025 Blue Jays, though. They’re ballplayers, but they’re also entertainers, and this is one incredibly deep cast.
