After a subpar 2019, Montoyo guided the club to a post-season berth during the COVID shortened 2020 season and narrowly missed the post-season last year. The Jays have been in the thick of the AL Wild Card hunt all of 2022, but had skidded recently losing 9 of their final 11 games under Montoyo's tenure. The Jays have been feeling the heat from both the Seattle Mariners and Baltimore Orioles who have each won 10 straight games. The Jays and Red Sox are presently tied with the Mariners for the second and third wild card berths with the O's only two games off the pace. Montoyo's tenure with Toronto ends with a won loss record of 236-236.
The Blue Jays promoted bench coach John Schneider to interim manager. Schneider has been with the Blue Jays organization for 20 years first as a minor league player and then a coach working his way up the ranks joining the big league coaching staff in 2019 before being promoted to bench coach at the beginning of 2022. The Jays bested the Philadelphia Phillies in his managerial debut last night.
Schneider worked with the likes of Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio in the minor leagues and it is believed they will listen to him in a way they never did to Montoyo. Yet Montoyo's firing is most curious as the Jays gave him a contract extension through the end of next season just over three months ago. On the other hand, they did offer Montoyo the contract extension on April Fools Day.
The sacking of Montoyo is the third in MLB in 2022 after the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Angels dismissed Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon, respectively. The Phillies have responded to interim manager Rob Thomson while the same cannot be said of the Angels where it concerns Phil Nevin. It will be interesting to see where a good old boy who didn't mean any harm like John Schneider falls on this spectrum.
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