Blue Jays Happy Hour

By Blue Jays Happy HourSports Baseball

Blue Jays Happy Hour episodes

July 15, 2025 Announcing our new Patreon page!
We here at Blue Jays Happy Hour have decided to take the leap into the mid-2010s and will now be hosting ad-free episodes and a weekly bonus show exclusively for paid members at patreon.com/BJHH. In this brief episode we explain what this all means, our motivation for doing it, what you can expect if you sign up to support us (or if you don't—HINT: nothing will change!), and, of course, where you can find us. Have a listen!
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6 min
July 10, 2025 Game Change
The Jays’ 10-game win streak is over, following a game that brought all sorts of grumbling about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. much too easily back to the fore. But it has changed the trajectory of the club’s season immeasurably, as they now head into their final series before the All-Star Break with an 88% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs—up from just 42% at the start of the season, and 40% at the end of May. Churn at the bottom of the roster matters deeply now, trade deadline thoughts are dancing in everyone’s head, Bo Bichette has a platform from which he can make himself a whole hell of a lot of money next winter, Anthony Santander and Alek Manoah still have time to put their stamps on the season, and this week we talked about all of it—and more!
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43 min
July 04, 2025 On Top of the World
The Blue Jays sit atop the AL East in the month of July for the first time since 2016 and therefore, I’d venture to guess, likely for just the second time since 1993. Yankees fans can cry and cry all they want about that not being reason to celebrate, not a single Jays fan could possibly care. Which is to say: things are pretty good with the Blue Jays right now! And this week we talked all about, starting with an extended vibe check, before moving on into all sorts of good stuff like Friday’s game being broadcast exclusively on (ugh) Apple TV+, the club’s recent roster churn, the Davis Schneider hype train, Vlad’s future legacy, and a whole lot more!
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54 min
June 27, 2025 The Drill Zone
This week Nick is mildly distracted by some drilling going on somewhere in his building—don't worry, it was very infrequent and barely noticeable when it did happen—as we rather coincidentally spend much of the episode talking about drilling of the baseball variety. As in: we discussed how Kevin Gausman pitched a gem to lead the Jays to a series win in Cleveland on Thursday, despite having intentionally put himself in trouble by throwing at Guardians star José Ramírez to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning with the Jays only just up 3-0 to send some kind of a message—and how the incident was talked about, too. PLUS: A vibe check, thoughts on the Robinson Piña trade, rating Jays relievers based on our current confidence levels, and a whole lot more!
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54 min
June 20, 2025 Erik's Swan Song
The Blue Jays have continued to roll over the last week, finally managing to reel in the New York Yankees a little bit, and have kept on doing so with contributions from unexpected places. And they’ve made it so they’ll need to keep on relying on those for a while yet, thanks to a number of transactions made in recent days, the most notable of which saw a pair of expected contributors—Bowden Francis and Erik Swanson— banished to the injured list and designated for assignment respectively.

That the Jays decided Francis keeping his spot had become untenable was hardly a shocker, but the presumed end of the Swanson Era—after just 30 batters faced—was at the very least a mild one. And it gave us a chance to talk about all things bullpen construction, to relitigate the Teoscar Hernández trade, and to look into the future at how the staff as a whole will function with a bullpen in transition and a rotation desperate to get Max Scherzer back—and, eventually, Alek Manoah—and could still probably use reinforcements beyond them as well.

Plus a whole lot more!
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52 min
June 12, 2025 Improving Internally
After what's seemed like years of waiting for their offence to arrive, over the last month the Blue Jays seem to have figured out how to hit and score runs. They're flying high, playing like one of the absolute best teams in baseball despite a rotation in shambles beyond the front three. This week we look at how internal improvements have powered their offensive outburst, and where improvements still need to be made in order to fix the pitching staff and weather the storms that surely lie ahead.
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47 min
June 05, 2025 Remembering Some Guys
It's been a good week for the Blue Jays, with some actually encouraging signs showing up in their offence. Addison Barger might be for real, Alan Roden and Davis Schneider are back after successful spells in Triple-A, but more important than that is the fact that lately we've been seeing the best of guys like Bo Bichette, Alejandro Kirk, and George Springer—some of the very guys the team had futilely pinned their hopes for "internal improvement" on over the last two or three years.

Plus, we look at some of the club's recent roster shuffling and injury woes, check in on the state of the rotation, the bullpen, and some prospects, and take a look through the Athletic's recent Blue Jays All-Quarter-Century Team.

Blue Jays All-Quarter Century Team: Toronto’s best since 2000 - Mitch Bannon - https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6381601/2025/05/27/blue-jays-all-quarter-century-team/
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1 hr 10 min
May 29, 2025 RISPy Business
The Blue Jays won a series in Texas by scoring just four runs, and while normally that would be cause to celebrate some extraordinary pitching performances, that certainly doesn't feel like what we just witnessed. The Jays and Rangers were abysmal offensively over the three games, with Toronto batters going a staggering 2-for-31 with runners in scoring position. Ugly stuff!

But RISP numbers are so dependent on luck that, even though they greatly help to tell the story of individual games, they're barely worth talking about without also addressing the offence as a whole. So that's exactly what we do, before moving relatively quickly on to topics like the resurgence of Bowden Francis and Kevin Gausman, whether Daulton Varsho should get a contract extension, and more!
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47 min
May 22, 2025 500 Up
The Blue Jays are not a team without problems, as we've been seeing all season. But after (eventually) picking up a much-needed and well-deserved sweep of the San Diego Padres—and potentially finding some solutions to some of their run-scoring problems in Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes, and a Daulton Varsho suddenly leaning in on his power—they now find themselves over .500 for the first time in more than a month. And just like that things feel about as good as they have all season.
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48 min
May 15, 2025 Don't Walk, Hit Dingers
After an episode last week that felt about as grim as any show we've recorded in-season for this podcast, the Jays brought us—and themselves—back to life. They've won five of six since we last spoke, and if not for three ugly bullpen blow-ups could be on an eight-game winning streak. Alejandro Kirk and Daulton Varsho have been especially aggressive at the plate, and it's paying dividends as the club has averaged 6.5 runs per game over that span. But can the good times keep rolling?
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44 min

About Blue Jays Happy Hour

From the publisher's feed

Andrew Stoeten (The Batflip, formerly the Athletic, National Post, Blue Jays Nation, Drunk Jays Fans) and Nick Ashbourne (Sportsnet and Yahoo Sports) team up every week to discuss all things…