Victoria Day was on Monday but fireworks are still going off at the Rogers Centre.
After the bats were silenced in a 5-0 loss on Tuesday, the Toronto Blue Jays woke up in the rubber match of their series against the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday and brought out the beloved home run jacket for the first time this season.
They opened the floodgates to the tune of seven runs in the second inning, breaking the team record for runs scored in an inning this season and showing just how dangerous the lineup can be when they’re in rhythm.
The start of the frame looked all too much like a typical Blue Jays inning. Justin Turner walked to start things off but Cavan Biggio couldn’t advance him after popping out.
But they followed it up with singles from Alejandro Kirk and Kevin Kiermaier to load the bases.
A shallow right-field flyout from Isiah Kiner-Falefa seemed like a bad omen preceding some deja vu, but Davis Schneider put those concerns straight to bed, hitting a single to left field and scoring Kirk and Turner.
Daulton Varsho then cleared the bases on a wicked triple, Guerrero Jr. singled to score another and Bo Bichette touched ’em all, crushing his third home run of the season to cap off the ridiculous 7-0 run.
Bichette became the first player to don the new and improved home run jacket after it was taken out of commission last season. He also became the first Blue Jay to hit a home run from the clean-up spot in 2024.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider spoke about the decision to bring back the threads during an in-game interview with the broadcast.
“Kind of a collective effort,” he said. “This is up to the players. I think they need to own what they want to do and need to have fun doing it. … Players seem to gravitate when they have something to grasp on to together.
“Whether it’s a jacket, whatever it is to get the guys going.”
Not a bad start to the Home Run Jacket 2.0 era.
