OverDrive - Matheson on the Blue Jays' playoff potential, Guerrero Jr.'s impact and the Orioles' series

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

MLB.com Blue Jays Reporter Keegan Matheson joins to discuss the Blue Jays' stretch chasing a playoff spot, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s impact to the team, Kazuma Okamoto's overview, Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt's matchup in the Blue Jays and Orioles' series, the potential playoff teams and more.

There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. Here's Keegan Mathes and join us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline. What's happening at Kiggs? Good to see you, fellas. I've been dying at the idea of the L.A. Rams, Australian Sherpa. What a dream job, boys.

Great gig. You know what I'm worried about, guys, is the tight flight, like noodles. you were talking about taking the sleepers for the overnight flight. I'm picturing one of these, like, offensive linemen who took too large of a gummy for the overnight flight to help them sleep, and we're just going to see them getting blown past in the first quarter today. They're going to be moving in slow motion out there. We'll see. Big time.

Well, in those Aussies, man, you, like football players, as we know, are a different beast. Like, they, I know rugby's big over there and all that. I don't know if you see too many guys who were like six, eight, three. 3-20 walking down the streets of Melbourne. You know, that airport, they better be prepared when those birds land. But, yeah, it's going to be fun to watch tonight. Football's back. I know you're a big fan of it, and you've been wondering, like, what's going to happen here in October?

Are you watching football? Are you covering baseball? And, like, yesterday, that one hurt. You know, Oakland is not a good team. Their pitching staff is not a quality staff. It's a hitter's park, and they get skunked yesterday. we were on the air. How bad was it through the eyes of Keegan Matheson? That's terrible. It's a bad team without their good players. There's levels to this, man.

It's a poorly timed performance against really bad pitching. And I'm way past caring guys that, you know, everyone else lost too. It's the bar needs to be raised. This has been just a season of, I think, a lot of people moving the goalposts covering this team, which I can't stand. Like this was supposed to be a World Series team. Let's not forget that. Like they came into this season as a World Series contender because they went one out

away from the World Series and they had a fine off season. Like this was not supposed to be hovering around 500 and this repetitive, annoying brand of baseball. And to drop one like that against the A's man, like coming up, when you look at the schedule, what is it, Orioles, Tigers, Rangers,

Orioles, Reds. They look when but I struggle to believe that stuff anymore at this point of the season because the Blue Jays lineup can disappear against just about anybody. Kagan, if we were going to ask you the two questions, like, is the answer basically Vladdy for both, like, for the Jays to get in, you know, what has to happen? Is it like Vladdy good and is it they're not going to get in if Vladdy continues on the way he's been going? Like, is he basically the X factor here? Or I know that the injuries to the pitching staff are key, but, like, how do you handicap this guy somehow heating up with 15 or 17 games left? It's all about him, O'Dag.

Like, I agree with what you said coming in. No other team has a sleeping giant, like Vladdy. Like, other teams have struggling players that've got injuries. Every team's got their stuff going on. nobody has a $500 million guy who just looked like the best hitter on the planet in the World Series putting up a six-something OPS with eight home runs. And every time, guys, it's tempting to believe, isn't it? Even that home run in Cleveland. I mean, he stops, he pimps the home run, he jogs around the bases.

People are chanting, Vladdy, Vladdy, Vladdy, Vladdy, it looks like it's there. And it's just not. Over and over again, it's just not there. And no matter how much I want to believe in these moments, you keep getting proven wrong. And that's so hard because I know that baseball player is still in there. That's not the conversation. I think some people are disingenuous when they talk about Vladdy.

Like it's disappeared. He took the money and ran. No, he's just having a god awful year, like historically awful year in this market. But when you see these moments, it's so tempting to believe, man, here he comes. Final 10 games of the year. he's going to hit 500 and drag this team to the postseason.

But I really do think it comes down to him, oh, it's just no one with more power on this team to change their trajectory. And it's going to come down to one game, somehow or another. It'll come down to one game. And if Vladdy can hit three home runs down the stretch instead of one, you probably win that one game. It's so easily done. He's their shortcut. That's the way I keep branding Vladdy.

He's the shortcut to the postseason. If he decides he wants to go there, they go there. So, Kagan, we've talked about kind of the negative. There's been some great storylines this year on some individual play. I mean, you know, notwithstanding, C's last start was not great, but he's had an unbelievable season. Okamoto, you know, Bateman looks like he's a player. Like, you look at all of this type of stuff. Has there been some positives that you've been able to focus on in this kind of like up and down season?

that's what blows me away, noodles, is their offseason was dynamite, man. Like, adding Dylan Seas, who if you did that deal again, you'd pay him more, my God. Caso Komodo for four years and 60. Tyler Rogers, like, I have not talked about Tyler Rogers all year,

which is good. Like, his job, it's like a punter. If you're talking about him, something's gone wrong. I'm not talking about Tyler Rogers. He's been great. And Spencer Miles, like that's like winning the lottery

in the Rule 5. They nailed all these offseason additions who've been great. Brett Bateman. I didn't see that coming. You don't want to lose those in the fire of this season. You know, Dylan Sees is going to be first or second for the Cy Young Award. But you look back through Jay's history going back to Doc Halliday, Roger Clemens twice, Pat Hankian, Robbie Ray.

All of them won Cy Young's, I believe, in years where the Jays didn't make the playoffs. And you cannot bet on this happening again, because we'll get into next year. And guys, we'll be sitting here in March or April saying, yeah, Vladdy might bounce back, but what if Dylan C's, looks a little more human next year. These things don't last. They don't stick around. You got to capitalize on them.

But that's what blows my mind, guys. Because if you told me this April, hey, all of these signings are going to work out this way, I would say, cool, I'm covering the World Series again. And they're below 500. Blows me away. As for Okamoto, he hits 30 home runs as a rookie, bit deceiving because he's not 20 years old. He's a veteran guy that played professionally in Japan for a long time. He's got a lot of strikeouts.

171 strikeouts. Swings for the fences. He does, but I know we're in the modern era, and you see some extremes like this, but how do you balance the good with the bad when it comes to Okamoto? You might take, guys, whatever. Honestly, I think the Blue Jays need more of this. It's actually their club record. Like, he's already set their club record for strikeouts, and it is,

September 10th. Now, it's a low club record. Most organizations have a guy who's done 200 plus, but Bautista and Matt Chapman. Yeah, he did. Yeah, not the way you want to pass Bautista, I don't think. But listen, I think the Jays would take more of this. I'm tired of watching a team try to hit four singles to score a run. It's okay if you have some big swings and misses and some ugly at bats along the way. Now, you don't want to strike out 250 times and you need the power. But if you could go up and down this lineup, guys. I'm thinking Vladdy, George Springer,

Kirk, maybe a few of the guys who have a bit of pop. If you could trade 10 or 20 strikeouts to add on two or three or four home runs in the right spots, you're doing it a lot. And if everyone else in this lineup was striking out, yeah, maybe Okamoto's a bit of a problem. But I think that his approach is what this team needs. It's chaotic.

There's big outcomes. You know, there's going to be ugly days. Sure. But he's also going to change some games. I think he's been a hell of a signing. Ideally, next year you don't set the record again. I mean, you don't want to get in that business. But I look at that, and I don't care as much as I thought I would, really.

The power's there. They need more power. They can eat a few strikeouts along the way. So we got Baltimore Town tomorrow. Scher Bassett at the Riders Center tomorrow. How do you tee that game up with those two on a mound? What a light. fluffy game that is, guys.

Like the two most stubborn men in Major League baseball out there. Like Max will be out there just yelling into his glove. Bass will be out there like rolling his neck around. You don't know if he just got shot or not. It's going to be great. It will be a very cinematic baseball game. Bassett's not been good this year. He dealt with some back stuff.

He's trying to come back. His year has not gone well. Max Scher is coming off of a bit of a rough one in KC. This is not a big title. card boat, but nothing in the ale is right now. This is a wide open opportunity for the Jays. And the Orioles are sneaky, guys.

Not because they're good. They're not. None of these teams are good. Let's be very honest. None of them are good right now. But the Orioles have six games left against the Jays. If they take four of those six, five of those six, that flips this whole race very quickly. Otherwise, you're seeing teams that are just stuck

in the mud. They're kind of one game up, one down, one up, one down. Having six games left against the Orioles, Yeah, you can just put them in a coffin over a couple days easily. But if the O's get hot, and we've seen stranger stuff, they could actually make this way more interesting than people realize, I think, just by having six left. And, man, the Jays need Max Scherzer to pull a couple more of these out of himself, man,

because pushing Dylan Sees and Jose Soriano, I like the aggression, but I think we're seeing that you've got to pay the tab eventually. Yeah, we're cease, I think. in particular. Soriano was really good the other night. But, you know, we mentioned prior to having you on. We were talking about who they could face, you know, if you get in. You know, the Yankees are going to play the Red Sox.

Either Chicago or Houston, as it currently stands, you know, there's a world where you could play Cleveland because Cleveland could still win the Central. You could play Texas because they could still win the West. You know, let's pretend they get in here. They go 10 and 5 down the stretch. They get in. one of those two teams, Chicago or Houston, in their parks on a road, best two at a three,

how would you feel about those matchups, considering what you know about those two teams? I'd rather go to Chicago for my own reasons, but if I have to end up in Houston, I think that Houston might be the tougher matchup for the Jays. Just because I look, guys, all of these teams are separated by two or three or four games. Over 162, that doesn't really mean anything to me.

They're the same caliber of teams. So you need to look at their top end. I think the Blue Jays have a clear advantage in pitching if Dylan sees his hot and he's going. They're going to have the advantage over anybody in game one. Soriano probably gives them advantage to. They're in a really good spot with that, especially against the White Sox, I think,

especially the White Sox. But Houston has Jordan Alvarez, who is one of my favorite players in baseball to watch. He's an unreal player, having an unreal season. He can just screw up your season. because we learned guys back three, four years ago when the Jays were going to the wild card round. It's not really about who's the best team over a big series.

It's two at a three. Like somebody's going to have a guy who launches on you or has a crappy day at work. And that's the season. And I think the Astros have a couple more of those players who can just wreck your whole year in one go. The White Sox are fun as hell. They're young. They are on the come-up.

And they're going to be good for a long time. But I think you've got to really like your chances in a pitching matchup. So if you're a Blue Jays fan or have any interest in my happiness, I think that Chicago is a better destination on the morning of September 20th. I wouldn't disagree with that one. I totally agree with that. All right, but great seeing you as always.

We'll do it again next week. You got her, fellas. Take care. There is, Keegan Mathis, and joining us here on the Maple Toyota Hotline. Rock Legends, Rush, live in Vancouver for the final 50-something tour stop. Be there on an IHartRadio epic rock adventure. Premium tickets, $1,000 spending cash. Plus, flights and hotel from tripcentral.ca.

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