A tiny bit more harm. Why the hitting coach for the Blue Jays is upbeat about Guerrero, Varsho, and additional offense.

We simply never stopped waiting for it to happen, waited for the right moment.”

In the most recent episode of Deep Left Field, the Star’s baseball podcast, assistant hitting coach Hunter Mense summarized the 2023 Blue Jays’ narrative in just one line.

All of us were waiting for the Jays offense to blow up and combine with a fantastic pitching staff to consistently pummel opponents. It never showed up.

The Jays finished just 21-19 over that stretch, so even when things were going well—they hit.303 with runners in scoring position in August, for instance, and.349 throughout the first two weeks of September—they weren’t translating into victories.

Mense said of a team that hit a dozen fewer home runs in 2023 than it did in 2022, “There was a little dip in power, and I think that’s where the lack of runs scored kind of reared its ugly head.” We’ve found it enjoyable to attempt to understand some of that stuff and why it’s happening, as well as to try to find out how to get them to cause a little bit more harm.”

It isn’t enough to have the batters swing for the fences.

Mense, who will begin his seventh season as a hitting coach and coordinator in the Blue Jays organization, stated, “You’re going to miss out on a lot of other stuff, too, if all you’re doing is preaching damage and hitting the ball out of the yard.” “And that’s not who we want to be.”

The Jays, who had the third-best pitching staff in the big leagues, barely made it into the playoffs last year thanks to their lackluster performance at the plate. They managed just one run in the postseason.