OverDrive - Matheson on Guerrero Jr.'s blatant hardship, Kirk's importance and Cease's elite stretch

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

MLB.com Blue Jays Reporter Keegan Matheson joined OverDrive to discuss Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s struggles through the season, Jose Berrios' potential surgery, Alejandro Kirk's injury hurting the team, Dylan Cease's impressive stretch and more.

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Jay's Tiger, starting this evening. you savage on a mound there's kegan matheson of mlb.com how we feel this afternoon kegan doing well fellas i i'm just listening to you guys talk about torts and it it is worth asking is is speaking to me worth it to pick in the second round i don't know good question there's days where i'd say no as well but what would you think about something like that win yeah like what do you how bizarre is that to you a team wins and they they just pulled this stunt and kegan we acknowledged earlier, there might be something behind the scenes that we're not aware of, but to just tell everybody we're getting the hell out of here, it's bizarre a world, Ben.

It's ridiculous. And when I heard, all I saw was the fine. I've been on the road today. I didn't watch the game last night. So I assumed, oh, man, the Golden Knights must have gotten whooped six nothing and torts was pissed off. You won. This world is easy, and there's a way to play the media game very, very, easily. And I don't think we talk about the Vegas

Golden Knights as like a hitman media hotbed, okay? And like you guys said, that's his old employer there. And if he doesn't get another contract to go back and coach the Golden Knights, is he going to look to jump right back onto that side? I mean, come on. Give me a break. He will. He will. He'll be right back on there. Quickly. So we have some, do we have Burrios News? I don't know what we have. What do we have on Jose Burrios?

What did John Snyder's tell us this afternoon? We have half news, and I think we can add one plus one at this point. What's going on with Birrios right now, guys? He's been pitching through that stress fracture in his right elbow, which, as we have talked about many times, does not sound great. And right now, the Blue Jays and Berrios and his doctors are trying to come to a final decision of what they do. And today, John Schneider said that surgery is on the table. It's an option they're considering.

So I think you can add one plus one together here. Whether it is just the fracture he's dealing with or maybe some loose bodies, which means bone chips floating around on the elbow. Right now, Berrios is not helping the Blue Jays and he is not moving in a healthier direction. He's got to get this fixed. He's got to get this taken care of, whatever that is, however long it takes. And guys, this is some educated assuming, let's call it. but I would assume that this is really frustrating for Jose Berrios because for the better part

of a decade, he has been one of the most consistent and healthiest pitchers in Major League Baseball. He has this persona and the nickname of La Makina for the machine because he is just the guy that pitches and pitches and never breaks. Now he has broken. And that's got to be tough to deal with on a personal level too. He's just 31. I think we'll have an update tomorrow and I think this is headed in a pretty obvious direction. Keegan, Brian Hayes does a very impressive segment on this show.

It's called B-listing where he just chart things of importance, and it's taken off like wildfire. If you had to compile a list like that for the Jays to turn this thing around, like things of importance, offense, Vladdy's play, health, pitching, like how could you, like on the fly here come up with a quick B-listing for us of what needs to happen. Like, can they build off the momentum of the Varshow Grand Slam and kind of get things rolling? I'm not sure about that, but how would you compile the list? It starts with Vlady for me. I know that's the easy answer with Vlady up top, but you need

Vladie in the middle of this, guys. A big swing from Dalton Varshow like that, hell yeah. And I think that momentum is real. And momentum, guys, I think momentum's different in baseball, because this is not a contact sport. It's not going to get those guys fired up to go out and hit somebody and punch someone, okay? It's a different type of momentum. It's a less aggressive momentum. Momentum in baseball actually feels the opposite, I think. It's a more relaxed approach. Now you show up today and thinking, okay, if we lose today, it's not five in a row. It's not the end of the world. You can go out and just take your ad bat. Not try to be the hero. I think that's very important here. But Vladie needs to be the guy and going through Detroit and my God, going in a new

York. He owns the Yankees. I think New York is going to wake him up if this road trip does not. You need Vladdy. You absolutely need Vladdy to be in the middle of this and to be leading it. Every other team has injuries. Every other team will have ups and downs. There are not many players like Vladdy in Major League Baseball. Now, if you look at his stat line, you're going to tell me, actually, Kegan, there are 200 like him. But we've seen what he can do, man. It's rare. and until Vladdy is playing to his potential, which is a 1,000 OPS hitter who breaks games wide open, this team will be stuck around 500.

Their good days will bring them closer to it. Their bad days will bring them a few games below 500. That's not exciting. That type of baseball does not excite me. But when Vladdy plays like himself, this team is a playoff team. And when other things go right, we saw last year, they can be a real playoff team, a threat,

but that's a bit down the road. When we talked about Vladiqueen, do you see anything? Like, you know, when you just can tell, you know, it's not anything mechanical or technical. There's just something up with the guy. Like, do you sense that at all? Because the performance is somewhat bewildering where you're like, this guy is one of the highest paid players in the league, and it doesn't even look close to that.

Do you get the sense that there could be something maybe that's bugging them or that's just off? like how do you even break it down what you're seeing because the idea of just kind of chopping down with his mechanics and this and that and can't get it up in the air I think we're beyond that aren't we like like this guy figures stuff out so what the heck are we talking about here yeah that's a good point oh dog because mechanics that almost gets to the point where we're talking like Vlad he doesn't know what to do with he knows exactly how to fix it okay like he come on he

Exactly. Like naturally gifted hitters like him, hitting a baseball is part of who he is as a human being. Okay, he's not just a guy who learned how to hit. He was born hitting. Okay, he knows what's wrong with a swing. He knows what needs to go into it. With Vladdy, there's a different layer. And Vladdy is not the player who I need to see guys. I don't need to see him taking batting practice at 11 a.m. and staying late to hit more. That's great. You want your guys to want it. Sure. but I don't care much about that with Vladdy. With some players I might. If you're a fringe roster player who's barely hanging on

and is about to get option to AAA, sure. Plant your ass in the batting cages and swing all night. Do it. I don't need that from Vladdy. What I want to see from Vladdy is him loose and joyful and playing his natural game. When Vladdy is thinking too much,

this is what happens. And I think the bar for that is lower than most players. I don't want Vladdy thinking much at all out there. I want him reacting. I want him natural. And I want him to be the aggressor. Very few hitters in Major League Baseball. Very few are the aggressor in an at-bat.

Most hitters are standing up there and thinking, God, I hope this is a fastball or God, I hope it's a curveball, and they react. Vladdy's one of the very few people in this sport when he's at his best. Not right now, but when he's at his best, who can guide an at-bat, who can control the pitcher. Dictate. And he's pretty far from that right now.

Dictate it. There we go. Exactly. But you're not seeing that right now. You saw it in the minor leagues. He had pitchers on a string, man. He was a puppet master. And you see it sometimes in the big leagues. We're just not seeing it right now. I really think, I think New York's going to wake him up. I think he's going to hit a ball out of the stadium. You just want to make these three days count first here in Detroit. I don't know if he has a reason to hate the city of Detroit yet, but maybe they can scrounge one up for him in the next two hours. If you had one player that was injured that you need back in the lineup, ASAP, who is it? Man, Alejandro Kirk. Does this team need Alejandro Kirk? Listen, Brandon Valenzuela has been really good stepping in, the rookie, and I think he deserves to stick around fully and completely. But Alejandro Kirk is the one guy noodles where when you look at his stat line, and if you're a casual fan and you look at Kirk's stat line,

his value, you've got to multiply it by double. man, like he is so important to this team, to this pitching staff, and how this lineup functions as well, just having him in the middle of that lineup, always putting the bat on the ball, he'll give you 10 or 15 home runs and big spots. He's just so important. This team loves him, you know, for all of the reasons that we see. Like, he's just that quiet guy who might give you a grunt, but he is so good and such a natural team player in this lineup.

They miss him. Man, he is really part of the backbone of this entire team, I think. You talk about Vladia's the face, but Kirk is a real foundational player, and I really can't overstate how important he is to this team. Yeah, it's been a huge hit, and it sounds like he's getting closer, which is great to hear with Keegan Matheson, Jay's Tigers tonight in Detroit. C's not on the mount tonight, obviously the Savage is going, but the last time we saw him out, like this time we saw before that,

in the time before that and before that, before that. I mean, this guy has been so dialed in. Talk about first impressions. I can't imagine it could go any better. You know, it's probably too early for Sy Young chatter, but his statistics would suggest Pando better get on that with where his odds are. What has impressed you most of Dylan's sees? He's so good, guys.

Like, when you talk Cy Young, what you're looking for, number one, you've got to stay healthy. You need to throw that 150, 100,000. He's on track to do that. He has stayed healthy in his career. You knock on wood there. And then you look at ERA and strikeouts. I've voted on the Sye Young many times and I know what you look at first. Then you'll go into fancy stats and you get a little cuter with it. But I'm looking at who threw some innings, struck out a ton of guys and had an ERA under three. This is the guy. Roger Clemens' seasons in Toronto guys, 97 and 98th. I don't know if we'll ever see

strikeout totals like that. But I think Dylan Sees has a shot at Robbie Ray who struck a out 248 in 2021 and won a Cy Young. Okay, those strikeout totals, when you're overwhelming hitters, which is exactly what he's doing, you're right in it, man. And he's going to make a lot of starts, and especially guys, if he is starting seven innings, throwing seven innings a game instead of five and a third, not only is that valuable, that's an extra two strikeouts every start. It adds up.

And, man, coming into the year, I said I thought he'd be a top three, Cy Young finisher. I think he's got a real shot to win it now. I know it's May 15th. I don't care. He has looked absolutely incredible beyond what I expected. Yeah, he's been phenomenal for them. Trey is Savage on the mound tonight.

There'll be a lot of Jay's fans down there. Enjoy it. Keegan, we'll do it again soon. You got her, fellas. Take care. Gegan Matheson, MLB.com. Unmistakably Canadian. It's the music that raised you.

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