Don’t look now, but the long-lethargic Toronto Blue Jays are on fire. Hot enough to let Canadian baseball fans fantasize about the club actually making the playoffs for the first time since its back-to-back World Series championships in 1992-93.
How hot are the Jays?
Major League Baseball’s annual non-waiver trade deadline passed on Thursday and general manager Alex Anthopoulous stood pat. A month ago, such passivity would have resulted in rage.
This time, not so much.
How hot are the Jays?
Since the July 15 All-Star Game, they Jays have won 11 of 14 games.
They are 10 games over .500 at 60-50, a game and a half behind Baltimore in the American League East standings (though three back in the important loss column). If the season ended today, the Jays would qualify for one of the two AL wildcard playoff spots.
A month ago, the Jays appeared dead in the water, playing listless AL-style station-to-station baseball that turned on no one, certainly not themselves.
Then things appeared to get a whole lot worse. The club lost its top slugger, Edwin Encarnacion, to injury. He joined scrappy Canadian third baseman Brett Lawrie and power-hitting first baseman Adam Lind on the disabled list. Even the team’s best player, Jose Bautista, had his production drop because Encarnacion’s absence and a series of nagging injuries.
All signs pointed to melancholy winding down of another desultory season.
Then something remarkable happened. Did the baseball gods smile on Toronto? Who knows, but Magic definitely took hold.
All of sudden, the Jays began showing some life. They began to hustle, they took the extra base, they hit-and-ran, they bunted, they played good defence.
They began to win–winning big, winning close, winning ugly, winning clean. Presto! Baseball–for the the players and the fans alike–became fun again.
Can the run be sustained? Certainly not at this level; the game does not work that way. Still, they are staying close.Can they make the playoffs? Stranger things have happened in baseball.
To assess the both the team and its playoff chances, I spoke with Rich Griffin, baseball columnist for the Toronto Star.
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