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A lot of the time, the opposition would be fully represented on the field.聽

It was a bad look, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was one of the players who noticed it, thinking things should change after seeing some pre-game video.

“It was a mixture of a couple guys, from my understanding, but I think Vladdy was kind of at the forefront of that,” starter Kevin Gausman said before Tuesday’s 3-0 series-opening win over the San Diego Padres. “It has kept guys accountable. We expect everybody to be out there.”

Think what you will about whether national anthems need to be played before a sporting event, that’s a separate issue. What’s meaningful is that there was a conscious choice by the team to do something differently, something together, before their season spiralled out of control.

The decision to come out for the anthems as a team was made during a recent road trip, after two straight losses to the last-place Los Angeles Angels had left the Jays in an ugly 4-12 slump and a season-worst four games under .500.

“We definitely talked about it in Anaheim,” said manager John Schneider, referring to a conversation he had with associate manager Demarlo Hale and bench coach Don Mattingly before taking the issue to Guerrero and other team leaders. The message was, “Hey, let’s try to get together a little bit more and just have a little more representation.”

They won the series finale in Anaheim, went to Seattle and swept the first-place Mariners, then came home to lose two of three to each of the Tampa Bay Rays and the MLB-best Detroit Tigers, all games in which they fell behind early but scrapped back to get within one run or take the lead. They聽showed a noticeable fight that had been lacking earlier in the season.

Gausman believes that the symbolic gesture of coming out for the anthems as a team聽鈥� and having everyone together in the dugout for those few minutes between the anthems and the first pitch聽鈥� helped get the players back on the same page after their brutal three-week stretch.

“Yeah, I think so,” the 34-year-old Gausman said. “To be honest, when you’re winning (the Jays were 12-8 before the big slump), you’re not even thinking about those things. Losing definitely makes you look more internally, for sure. Any player will tell you that.

“When stuff’s going great, you’re not even really thinking. You’re just showing up, playing baseball, winning games and expecting to win 鈥� You only have to address things or change things or make an adjustment when things aren’t going well.”

Closer Jeff Hoffman, new to the Jays this season, knows that team unity can wane when things aren’t going well.

“When you’re losing a bunch of games, it’s easy to just kind of show up and get your work in and see what happens that night,” he said.

Hoffman. a 10-year veteran who聽has played on playoff teams and 100-game losers, believes that having everyone together on the field for the anthems has reinvigorated the Jays, serving as a reminder that they’re playing for each other.

“This is us, that’s all it is, it’s us,” said Hoffman, who picked up his 10th save Tuesday.聽“You win together, you lose together, but we’re going to do both of them together. That’s the way it’s going to be. That’s how you build the type of culture we want to build here.”

No one gave any indication that things were starting to fray in the clubhouse or that any selfish play was creeping in over the run that took the Jays from 12-8 to 16-20, but it appears as though the decision to be out for the anthems was a move to nip any such issues in the bud.

“It’s not a switch that you flip,” Hoffman said. “For a seven o’clock game, guys are getting here at 1:30, you walk through the door and you’re there for the next guy. I think that’s just a good way to go about your business, a good way to play, and it just frees you up to play for each other and see what happens at the end of the day.”

So far, so good. Tuesday’s win was the Jays’ seventh in 11 games since everyone started coming out for the anthems, reminded that the team comes first.