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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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, Kameron Misner in the fourth and Josh Lowe in the fifth added solo shots and a Chandler Simpson RBI single in the sixth ended the veteran righty’s outing.
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.
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