Toronto Blue Jays vs. Tampa Bay Rays: Odds, Prediction
The Blue Jays start their final road trip of the 2025 regular season by opening a four-game series at AL East rival Tampa Bay on Monday night. Toronto is a -125 favourite on the MLB odds with a total of 8.5 runs.
Betting Analysis
Just a reminder that the Tampa Bay Rays this year are playing at the Yankees’ spring home in Tampa and not their usual Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. The Rays will go back there in 2026, so after this series the Blue Jays may not play another game that counts in Tampa for years (they will play the Yankees next spring there like every spring). The franchise has been sold and it is expected that new ownership will try and get a stadium built in Tampa, but that will obviously take years.
Considering the new home this year and a lot of pitching injuries, the Rays have done well to hang around .500 but they are now playing out the string and trying to avoid back-to-back losing seasons for the first time since 2016-17. Toronto’s motivation remains very clear: Win the AL East and ideally get the top seed for the AL playoffs – the Jays are -475 for that.
Tampa Bay leads the season series 5-1 and swept three games at home from May 23-25 by a combined score of 19-2, winning each by multiple runs.
Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto swept a home series against Baltimore over the weekend and carries a four-game winning streak into Monday. It also leads the AL East by four games and is -1400 on the updated odds to win that. George Springer had three hits, including a homer, and two RBIs on Sunday. That’s back-to-back multi-hit games to follow a 4-for-26 slump. Technically, Sunday was the Blue Jays’ MLB-best 46th comeback win of the year. With a 7-6 finish or better, the team would finish with 94 wins, more than Toronto has had in any season since 1993.
The franchise’s No. 1 prospect and No. 25 overall in the sport, right-hander Trey Yesavage, is set for his big-league debut on Monday. The 22-year-old was Toronto’s first-round pick (No. 20 overall) in the 2024 draft out of East Carolina. This has been his only year in the minors and across four levels, Yesavage went 5-1 with a 3.12 ERA in 25 appearances (22 starts) with 160 strikeouts and a .158 opponents’ batting average in 98.0 innings.
While Yesavage may start Monday, it will be as a pseudo-opener. The team says he is up for good and that it will decide what to do with Yesavage after his start. Most likely, he will serve as a power arm in the bullpen, but Yesavage will still keep his rookie status for 2026.
The under is 7-2 in the Blue Jays’ past nine.
Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays spent all of last week in Chicago and lost four of six games total to the White Sox and Cubs. Tampa Bay isn’t officially eliminated from playoff contention yet, but it’s over. One of the team’s better power bats in Christopher Morel left Sunday’s loss to the Cubs with an abdominal injury, but Morel generally only starts vs. lefties.
The Rays platoon guys via their splits more than any team. Except for one guy: Rising superstar Junior Caminero, who has 44 homers. Those are the second most in an age-21-or-younger season (age as of June 30) in MLB history, trailing only Eddie Mathews’ 47 homers in 1953.
There has been no official starting pitcher named for Monday, but it likely will be 6-foot-8 Joe Boyle to kick off a bullpen game. The 26-year-old is 1-3 with a 5.40 ERA in 10 appearances (six starts) this year but hasn’t pitched in the majors since Aug. 21. Boyle is expected to be called up from Triple-A Durham for this spot start. He hasn’t faced Toronto in 2025.
The over is 8-4 in Tampa’s past 12 home games. That minor-league park has proven hitter-friendly.
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