OverDrive - Matheson on the Blue Jays' winning ways, Springer's impressive stature and Scherzer's added setback

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

MLB.com Blue Jays Reporter Keegan Matheson joined OverDrive to discuss the Blue Jays' convincing winning streak, the offensive spark on the roster, George Springer's excellence for the team, the matchup against the Rays, Max Scherzer facing another setback and more.

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We know the author. He's one of our favorites. And in fact, there's a little excerpt from the Overdrive crew right behind it. I think we're on the book. I love it. The book is called The Franchise and it's about the Blue Jays, a curated history of the Jays and it's written by our next guest. Here is our main man from MLB.com Keegan Matheson. What's up Keegan? That's what the people need to know. You guys are patrons of the arts, men of literature involved in this book. I love it, guys. I love it. I love it, too.

Let me read it quickly, the excerpt on the back, all right? Keegan is the voice of baseball with us on the national flagship sports program, Overdrive. That sounds like something we would say. His knowledge and insight combined with his incredible sense of humor makes him a true bearded baseball authority which is all featured in the franchise whether it to be his view on who's playing well a player get traded or what's good to you on the road keegan has it all that is something we would say a hundred percent

agree with that we need to start more radio appearances like this just a prepared statement that complimented that i would really prefer the yeah i love it to the only thing i can think about is like is it on audio book yet because we need to get a lot of people like i don't know are you a book i read books yeah i'm an audio guy like i i i someone reads the kid you know they read that they read his book and you can buy it on i don't see reading gets serious. And you listen to it. Oh, it's brilliant. That's what I do. Like I I'll be driving if you have a long drive or something like that you listen to a book.

Do they have a motion in the book? Like does the book read like monotone? Well, if Keegan gets fired up about something, maybe the Vlad is signing. Yes, it'll have it's not gonna be monotone and they gave him 500 million. And then Ceto Gatsby. What do you make of that Keegan? You got any plans for getting in the booth or what you know what does not yet but i'm getting that a lot and i've already told give you who wrote the forward that if this goes to audio book he's higher if you have a little have that budget but i need i need to be reading all two hundred some pages that's uh... you know what that's the the feedback I get most and it's the most

meaningful one when people say you know what I'm not a book guy but I guess I'll pick it up and you know what there we go it's it's much like my stories each night guys if you actually read it no problem but as long as you buy it or click on it we're happy exactly no it's beautiful man it's a it's a beautiful looking book I sound like Trump it's a beautiful book yeah it's the most beautiful book some people are saying the most beautiful book the greatest book ever maybe the greatest book of all time but there it is well Keegan it's good I'm sure it's good to be home you've been on the road and

man we were talking about they lost the first two games in LA emotions that we've had in the last week with this team crazy like i came on here after they lost those first two games and hoffman's blowing games and looks brutal and i'm like this this i can't do this again and all of a sudden they've won four in a row their bats have absolutely exploded what in your opinion what happened what happened between game two and three in anaheim and then we're carried over to seattle i think a lot of the guys have to do with me showing up in ciali they're really the kinds of the mood around the organization

but uh... men this is a team that has not had much of a middle ground yet and the example of a middle ground guys would be kind of a bad or average game but Vladi hits a home run and they win. We have not seen those types of games where an individual performance decides the game or where Kevin Gosman just shuts the team out. We haven't seen that. This is a team that either needs to click as a nine-man

lineup or not and that's going to lead to some good days and some really really bad days. Those losses against the Angels were terrible. There's no way around that and this is not a team that can afford to have bullpen losses. They really cannot and when the back end falter that's as ugly as it's gonna look. But then suddenly they get to Seattle and the lineups working together We saw it in that last game Sunday that win that they have been praying for a big 9-1 win The power guys are hitting for a bit of power

The bottom of the lineup is being a bit more scrappy moving runners the running pushing the envelope on the bases aggressively It all came together like it was supposed to and when that happens it looks really good. It's amazing guys how you can go three days from wow this team might be going in the tank to okay maybe this team is back on track maybe they are that wild card team but a complete 180 amazing to watch it live and they've got a little sense of momentum now in an American league that's kind of messy. This is a year where you do not need to win a hundred baseball games to make the playoffs. Keegan, what is going on with George Springer this year?

This is amazing, guys, and I will not pretend to have seen this coming whatsoever. Like, I am so impressed by George Springer because this is a different person than we saw last year and beyond the baseball guys like it just looks like he's having fun again he is re-energized out there and George Springer is an energetic guy he's always going at a thousand miles an hour and when you're struggling having all that energy probably goes in a pretty negative direction but we are seeing right now the player that the Blue Jays signed for 150 million bucks a guy that is leading a team frankly right now and I did not see that coming at all

I really didn't and not only is he hitting for power I mean he's showing life on the bases at 35 that we haven't seen from him in a couple of years it's really impressive and to have that in the middle of the lineup has changed this team completely and it's it's surprising to say those guys even as I'm saying it but if George Springer was down with a 650 or 700 OPS right now that wouldn't surprise anyone after last year but we would be talking about a Blue Jays team that's a couple wins shy of where they are right now, and that's not a good thing. He is dragging them. And until Vladdy gets hot, until Bo gets hot, which needs to happen, Springer is keeping

this lineup alive at 35. It is so impressive what he's doing, and he's doing it with some life. It's watchable. It's fun to watch him play baseball right now. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. I mean, he's, George has hit five home runs this year. He's batting just under 300. He's got an OPS of 921. And now, you know, he's going to move around the outfield at times, but now that Varsho's in center and playing every day,

I think that's pretty significant to right Keegan like the the arrival of our show Puts a lot of pieces in place Absolutely does and when you have that Solidified it lets John Schneider sit down every day and look at the lineup and try to score runs That's a big shift that they've made this year and adding on dress and men as a kind of simplified that second base position to himself the but last year there was a lot of thought put into the best defensive format they could put out there and sometimes defense came before often when they were making a lineup

that shifted that's been a complete flip now john snyder in the coaching staff they sit down and they try to score runs with their lineup because you're naturally going to have a good defense with these players on this roster. But they're chasing a bit more offense now. And if you have Varsha in there every day, that locks in a moving piece. You don't need to worry about covering that with Nathan Lucas, Miles Straw.

You can chase matchups in other places. George Springer is a big part of that. Anthony Santander is going to be a big part of that. You're going to DH him sometimes, probably. And then Addison Barcher, man, he has come out of nowhere and is doing something with all of those crazy tools he has. It's been impressive to watch, but having Barcher right in the middle there simplifies things. It lets you chase offense. With Keegan Matheson, so this has been a very very positive discussion. Let's throw Max Scherzer in the mix. Yeah, let's get a little

crazy. What's the latest with Scherzer? And I mean, give us the straight goods here. What's going on with this guy? So Max Scherzer, through live BP, which means he's facing his own hitters in Anaheim last week coming out of that his thumb felt okay but his back did not he felt some mid back tightness they are calling it so that's gonna get in the way of his schedule he was supposed to throw again either Sunday in Seattle or today here in Toronto that hasn't happened So this does not seem like a terribly serious thing, but ramping up as a pitcher is delicate. Guys, if you get

derailed from that, then you have to go back a step and throw a bullpen again instead of facing live hitters. And this Max Scherzer thing all along, guys, whenever I hear a timeline, I don't really care about it until we really see him up to 50 60 70 pitches because throughout spring training and throughout the early parts of this year Scherzer continues to say I don't really know how this is gonna react until I'm past 50 pitches and it's bouncing back so how it feels after 30 or 40 pitches facing his own guys yeah it's good that he's not in pain, but I don't think that matters quite yet. I really don't. And this is one where the Blue Jays kind of need some patience to see how it goes,

but this is not a time for patience when they are trying to patch together their number five rotation spot. One of their top pitching prospects, Jake Bloss, we just found out today he's undergoing elbow surgery. He's gone for a year at least. So they need someone in that spot. And it's not going to be Scherzer next week, probably not two weeks from now. At best, you're still looking a few weeks down the road, which means three, four, five more starts you need to cover in that spot.

But as we have seen, it's not simple, it's not straight with this injury. And the more complicated things get, it's not simple it's not straight with this injury and the more complicated things get isn't usually not a good thing. What do you make of the Pete Rose news today? Surprising guys and I am really interested to see how what percentage he gets in his first year on the ballot the Hall of Fame ballot but it's going to be a big point of conversation around that and it's gonna stretch outside of baseball as well i guarantee you that that news coming today i i didn't know what was coming

that's all that will be a down the clubhouse but that is going to be a another big conversation like we've had with period over the years bill blast decade or so and they hit the ballot but we're just talking about that up here where I think his percentage will be you need 75% to make the Hall of Fame of BBWA votes I don't think that's happening right out of the gates but if

he a guy that gets 40 50 60 right out of the gates I'm not sure it's gonna be a fascinating one and my god it's gonna be a talking point oh it most certainly will be well we'll take it from here jays race tonight and uh... thanks for sending the books in keegan we can't wait until they're all available online in stores noodles to be waiting on your voice out the audio book and uh... or often run and thank you buddy appreciate doing this you've got a fellow about the start reading a chapter per radio appearance. Yes. I'm a perfect story time. I love it There he is Keegan Mathis in MLB.com

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