Homers fly with dome open as Blue Jays drop finale to Rays
The ball was jumping with the lid open for the first time this season at Rogers Centre. However, it jumped a little bit more for the Rays, who went deep four times to beat the Blue Jays in Thursday’s series finale.
TORONTO – Lid open for the first time this season and the ball was jumping at Rogers Centre, with a combined seven homers beneath a clear blue sky on a pleasant 20 C afternoon Thursday.
Now, the ball jumped a little bit more for the Tampa Bay Rays, who took Kevin Gausman deep three times and worked him for six runs over 5.2 innings, than it did for the Toronto Blue Jays, who fell 8-3 to drop two of three to their division rivals.
Addison Barger in the second, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the third and Nathan Lukes in the eighth each took Zack Littell deep before a crowd of 22,856, but each was a solo shot and there wasn’t enough offence around the big blows to overcome an early hole.
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Still, with home runs in each of their last seven games and eight in their past three outings, the Blue Jays, 21-22 as they head into a weekend series with the American League-leading Detroit Tigers (29-15), are finally producing the type of power they’d been seeking.
“Seemed like the ball was traveling pretty well with the roof open today,” said manager John Schneider, calling the power surge “a huge boost for us. These guys can do that. You get some unexpected power from the bottom at times, I think Nate is having really, really good at-bats, but that’s just a plus for us going forward.”
Gausman gave up a two-run homer to Brandon Lowe in the first, a Danny Jansen RBI single in the second when an additional run was cut down at the plate by a terrific Lukes throw from left field, solo shots to Kameron Misner in the fourth and Josh Lowe in the fifth and a Chandler Simpson RBI single in the sixth that ended the veteran righty’s outing.
He was also fortunate to both avoid serious injury and record an out in the third when Junior Caminero sent a 96 m.p.h. fastball at 116.5 m.p.h. off both his right hip and left wrist. He pounced on the ball and tagged Caminero as he ran up the base-line, but then needed a couple minutes to recover before continuing on.
“I thought it was coming for my private area, so I was actually lucky to get that out of the way,” Gausman said sheepishly. “Obviously not a very good day for me, but kind of crazy on the hardest hit ball, I got the guy out. That’s kind of where I’m at right now. I’m not being consistent. I need to be better.”
Brandon Lowe added another two-run shot in the ninth, this one off José Ureña, capping off another offensive outburst by two teams who finished the game tied for 23rd in the majors at 38 homers apiece.
The seven homers aren’t directly attributable to the roof being open — they also combined for seven in Tuesday’s 11-9 Rays victory — but in the previous three seasons, there’s an uptick in homers-per-game outdoors versus indoors.
|
Year |
HR Open |
Per Game |
HR Closed |
Per Game |
|
2025 |
7 (1) |
7.0 |
62 (21) |
2.95 |
|
2024 |
121 (53) |
2.28 |
59 (30) |
1.97 |
|
2023 |
123 (56) |
2.20 |
59 (30) |
1.97 |
|
2022 |
142 (53) |
2.68 |
62 (29) |
2.14 |
Games played in parentheses; Games with roof both open and closed counted in both tallies
Several factors can drive that — the ball travels better in warmer conditions, hitters are more in tune with their swing later in the season when the weather has turned — so correlation isn’t necessarily causation.
The sample size is still far too small this season to read into an increase in homers per game thus far at the dome, too, but now that the roof is ready for outdoor baseball as weather permits, the trend lines are certainly worth watching.
“Roof open or closed, I think all those balls are gone,” Schneider said of Thursday’s outburst. “It’s nice to play outdoors. It’s always nice to do that here and get a little more red than I usually get. But it seemed like it was going. It’s weird. Some days when it’s open, it doesn’t fly. This is a weird set up where, depending on where the wind’s going, it’s either going to go or not.”
Lukes echoed that sentiment, saying any differences between the way the ball travels roof open versus roof closed is “just a matter of which way the wind is blowing.”
“I know it kind of circles around every once in a while because of the half dome (covering the outfield),” he added, “so I think it’s just like playing outside, just depends on the wind.”
The bigger change, Lukes believes, comes defensively, because “the depth perception is a little different.”
“When the roof is closed, that upper deck is like, black, you almost don’t see it,” he explained. “When the roof is opened up, you can truly see how big the stadium is, and when that shade rolls in and the stands are sunned and I’m standing in the shade, it’s tough to see balls off the bat.”
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The feel on preferences between open or closed “changes year-to-year,” said Schneider. “I think back to two years ago and we always wanted it closed and probably three years ago we always wanted it open. I don’t know, I’m not a weather man. It’s different every single day.”
Gausman also said he didn’t have a sense of whether the ball travelled better one way or the other, but noted that he usually enjoys playing outdoors because “for whatever reason, I think my split moves more when the roof is open.”
That wasn’t the case Thursday, when he got seven whiffs on 22 swings on his split but also eight foul balls and seven balls in play, three of them for hits. In turn, that made a fastball that averaged 95.8 m.p.h. and topped out at 98.8 m.p.h. susceptible to good contact, which the Rays made with two homers and four singles on heaters.
“My split is just inconsistent,” said Gausman. “It’ll be really good one start, the next start it’s not very good, whereas it’s been pretty good for years now. I need to find what adjustment I need to make. In this game, if you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse, so I have to get better. Simple as that. I need to find a way to get back to being who I am and that’s being on the attack and throwing fastballs that are going to carry the zone, splits that are going to carry the zone and not allowing them to kind of get me into corners to where they can sit on certain pitches. I’m not there right now.”
Roof open or shut.
