John Schneider had no interest in pretending Thursday night was anything other than what it looked like from the dugout and the stands: a rough one for the Blue Jays, and a night when the crowd let them hear it.
After Toronto was hammered 13-2 by the Kansas City Royals at Rogers Centre, the manager said fans were well within their rights to boo.
“For one, fans are coming out every single night, which we love and we appreciate. There are no better fans in the sport, that's evident - the support that we have from coast to coast.
They're entitled to their opinion,” Schneider told reporters after the game. “When you're getting your ass kicked pretty good, they're allowed to have their opinion, but we love their support every night.”
The loss gave Toronto its second straight series defeat and its fourth loss in the last six games. The Blue Jays also dropped to 3.5 games behind the Cleveland Guardians for the final AL wild-card spot.
Against a Kansas City team sitting below them in the standings, Toronto had a clear chance to tighten the race. Instead, the Royals took the three-game set 18-8 on the scoreboard, and the Blue Jays also watched the Baltimore Orioles move ahead of them in the standings.
The crowd’s frustration really boiled over in the sixth inning. Toronto was already trailing 4-0 when Simeon Woods Richardson came in and promptly allowed six runs in the frame.
The boos kept coming after that, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. took some of the heat late. The star first baseman was booed after grounding out in the sixth and again in the eighth.
Guerrero, the 2025 ALCS MVP, still hasn’t homered at Rogers Centre this season in 61 games, and he has only two RBIs over his last 20 games. He worked with the team’s hitting coaches before the game, taking extra work on the field, but finished 0-for-3 with a walk.
“It’s been a weird year for Vlad,” Schneider said. “I feel for him; everyone feels for him. It just seems like even when he's hitting the ball hard, it's at someone or it's on the ground.
“He's competing. He's working.
You guys saw him hitting early. He's doing everything that he can to be the player that he is. ...
We're going to continue to support him in any way we can. I just like the fact that he was getting some good swings off.”
Schneider also said Guerrero’s removal to start the eighth inning was strictly about the score, not anything else.
“Just trying to get him off his feet,” the manager said.
Toronto now turns the page quickly, opening a three-game series with the Seattle Mariners on Friday at home.
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