The Toronto Blue Jays’ top offensive weakness is generally considered to be their lack of power production, but in recent weeks, a new issue has emerged: Their vulnerability to the fastball.
When the Tampa Bay Rays swept the Blue Jays last weekend and held them to just two runs over three games, they pounded Toronto’s lineup with heaters — despite entering the series as one of the least fastball-heavy pitching staffs in the majors.
While the Rays are far from an unimpeachable organization, their on-field strategy tends to be strong, and last weekend’s approach appears to be the culmination of a trend rather than a one-off. The first time Tampa Bay faced the Blue Jays in mid-May, they threw significantly more fastballs than usual, and since then, other teams are following suit:
Perhaps unsurprisingly, since May 13, only one team has seen a higher fastball rate than Toronto (53.9 per cent).
In response to this trend, the important question to ask is how well the Blue Jays have handled fastballs in 2025 so far and how well-equipped they are to deal with a fastball-heavy diet in the months to come.
When we’ve said ‘fastballs’ so far, we’ve meant the combination of both four-seamers and sinkers.
Cutters can be considered part of the family, but they are a bit messy to include here because not every pitcher throws them and has the option to ratchet up their usage against a team like the Blue Jays. Almost every pitcher has a four-seamer or sinker, though, giving them the option to ‘throw more fastballs’. For what it’s worth, Toronto’s lineup ranks 23rd in run value against cutters (-6.7) according to Statcast.
If we stick with four-seamers and sinkers, it’s clear that the Blue Jays' current lineup hasn’t done much against them all season:
While Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer have handled these pitches well, everyone else has ranged between mediocre and decidedly unimpressive. That said, it’s only been approximately a third of a season, which is a pretty small sample for data on individual pitch types.
Looking at stats from the past two seasons will give us a sense of whether the Blue Jays’ struggle with heaters is something that’s merely happening in this moment or a foreseeable structural problem with the team.
We’ll sub out Nathan Lukes and Addison Barger because they came into 2025 with minimal MLB experience, and we didn’t have much of a baseline for how they’d do against MLB heaters, then add in Andrés Giménez, who figures to get plenty of playing time when healthy.
At this point, you may be thinking that the Blue Jays' lineup never projected to be stellar in 2025, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that they hadn’t been great against heaters in recent years — aside from Vladdy.
There’s truth to that, but it also appears this lineup is composed of players with a recent track record of doing much better against breaking balls and off-speed pitches. If we redo that chart again, but focus on those offerings, it looks like this:
These numbers aren’t otherworldly, and Guerrero is doing a lot of the heavy lifting once again, but they tell the story of a Blue Jays lineup that entered the season likely to do significantly better against slow stuff than fastballs.
You could argue that these numbers are skewed a bit by Bichette’s dreadful 2024 that doesn’t reflect his true talent, or point out that Springer was once arguably the best fastball hitter in the game — but the former’s been better against secondary pitches even in his best years, and the latter is 35. The degree to which Springer has bounced back against heaters this season is exceeding expectations.
In past seasons, the Blue Jays' lineup was criticized for having too many hitters with similar profiles who could be pitched to in broadly the same way. In recent seasons, Toronto has evened out its group from a right-left perspective, but it’s come around to a new problem despite its more balanced configuration.
Once again, this is a group that a pitcher can get in a rhythm against with a singular strategy. Right or left, most of this group struggles when you pound them with the hard stuff.
That won’t work every time — as Jacob deGrom found out on Monday when he upped his fastball usage against Toronto and produced the first no-strikeout start of his career — but it might work often enough to seriously hamper this offence in the months ahead.
