The secret to Barger's big hit for Blue Jays? A bat he hadn't seen in a year

TORONTO -- With one of the biggest, loudest innings of baseball we’ve seen this season in Toronto, the Blue Jays put all of their devils to bed.

Addison Barger’s cold streak? Snapped. Jeff Hoffman’s Tuesday meltdown? That’s old news again. The Blue Jays, flirting with an ugly night in a stretch that’s had a few too many, just hit their season with another lightning bolt.

“That was loud. That was a pretty electric atmosphere,” said manager John Schneider. “These guys do not quit. They do not give a [crap] who they’re playing against. They don’t care what the situation is. I love it. They don’t even care if I pinch-hit for them [after] they hit a home run. That was a big win today.”

Wednesday’s 9-8 win over the Twins at Rogers Centre just kept demanding Barger have a moment. Barger didn’t take the first few offers, no matter how many times the game begged it of him and how many runners he saw standing on those bases, but Barger has always been capable of splitting a game wide open in a single second. It finally came with a line-drive double off the right-field wall in the bottom of the eighth, a ball hit so hard it barely bent as it fell.

By the time George Springer rounded third and found himself sprawled in the dirt beyond home plate as the game’s winning run, he exploded with emotion, howling into the air with both fists pumping in front of him. The crowd felt it, too, carrying its roar right into the next at-bat, chanting and wanting more.

Even as Barger jogged off when the inning ended, they just kept going.

“It feels awesome. That’s an awesome moment,” Barger said. “Any time you can help the team win, it’s huge. This is the big leagues. We have a ton of fans here who are really into it. It’s pretty awesome.”

It felt like a weight had been lifted off Barger by the time he stepped in front of the cameras. He came into the night batting .200 with a .571 OPS this month, and it had been too long since we’d seen one of those trademark eye-popping moments. Barger tried to give the cliche baseball answer, but then he cracked a smile and shared his secrets.

“I was just trying to get something in the middle -- honestly, I used a different bat,” Barger said. “My bat was not working. It hasn’t been working. Ty France actually picked up one of my old bats in the cage and randomly decided to use it. I hadn’t seen the bat since last year, but he hit a homer with it. I was like, ‘Oh, shoot, I’ll use that.’ It worked.”

Then came Hoffman, the man who’d allowed four runs just 24 hours ago and turned a win into a loss. This is the life of a closer, though. All night and all morning, Hoffman’s name sat in all the wrong headlines, but the lights cut off and his song played again just after 10:00 p.m. ET. A few minutes later, Hoffman was back where he belonged and back where he’s been 29 times this season, celebrating a save for one of the best teams in the American League.

Schneider has stood behind Hoffman, just like he always does. He’s done the same with Springer, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a dozen other players over the past year. It doesn’t always work out, but Schneider’s batting average is pretty high. Always, it begins with a trust in the person, then comes the player.

“I don’t know how it feels to go out, give up some home runs and hear it from your home crowd,” Schneider said. “Then, to go back out and stand on the mound with a one-run lead against the middle part of the order? I don’t know what that feels like, but that’s why he’s good at it. I’m pumped for him.”

From Barger to the bullpen and Hoffman himself, everything that had gone wrong recently was suddenly right. Eric Lauer’s rough night -- all four homers included -- were suddenly an afterthought.

That’s part of what makes the 2025 Blue Jays so special, so hard to look away from even on the ugly nights. There’s this constant sense of hope that it all might turn around in an instant, and when the bad days come, the Blue Jays just keep shaking them.