Blue Jays Late Season Run

A funny thing happened this summer in Toronto.

Despite last nights' 1-0 loss, don't count them out just yet...

First, as summer was just starting, the Blue Jays ripped off a crazy stretch of wins which saw them peak at a 38-24 record and a 6 game lead in their division. At that point in the season (just as June was ending), it looked as if this would be the first time in 2 decades that Toronto would have meaningful baseball games in September. Only a couple of weeks later, as the injuries started to pile up (Lawrie first, then Lind and Encarnacion to top it off), the wheels started to fall off and the team fell all the way down to 3^rd in their division, behind even the Yankees who had seemingly lost all of their best starting pitchers (CC Sabathia, Tanaka, and Pineda) and were using scraps from other teams and youngsters to limp along this season.

July and August were pretty brutal in terms of the mounting losses and it looked again as if the team would be out of it by September 1^st. But then, the team started turning to it’s promising young pitchers which they had decided to keep instead of dealing (an idea that angered Casey Jannsen and Jose Bautista back in July) and, guess what, they started winning again.

Marcus Stroman looks like the ace of the staff right now as he threw a 93 pitch, 3 hit shutout against the Cubs (yes, they suck but still) and is now 10-5 on the season. Aaron Sanchez has been so dominant at times out of the bullpen that there are rumblings that he may just supplant a struggling Jannsen as closer. Sanchez hits 98 to 100 mph on a regular basis with his fastball and has a miniscule ERA (1.27) in the 20 or so games he has pitched in. While he is a starter, his numbers out of the bullpen have helped solidify a shaky group that was a strength for the team last year.

Drew Hutchison, the forgotten young arm on the staff, seemed to be running out of gas about a month ago as this was his first full season as a MLB starter. When you factor in that he was also returning from Tommy John surgery this year as well, all signs were starting to point to him as a likely candidate to be shut down if the team continued to struggle along as they did for all of July and August. But he has turned a corner since a horrid first inning in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, putting up “Ace-like” numbers in his last 4 starts (28 innings, 12 hits, 5 earned runs 3-0 record).

Over the last 2 weeks, it's been a balance between great pitching and timely hitting that has brought them back into the hunt

The man most people blame for this turbulent season is Manager John Gibbons. When they win, he looks like a genius, when they lose he is a bum so this season he has looked equal parts of both in the eyes of many. What you can’t deny is that since it became clear that Colby Rasmus was NOT the answer in centerfield anymore and he made the switch to alternating Anthony Gose and Kevin Pillar there (with Pillar now playing left since Melky Cabrera broke his finger in Boston last week and is out for the rest of the season), the team is on a tear having won 10 of 14 (which SHOULD have been 11 if Jannsen hadn’t blown a save in extra innings in Boston last weekend).

This team has seen more ups and downs this season then  most rides at Canada’s Wonderland. With their Starting 3^rd baseman out for most of the year (When will Lawrie EVER play a full season?) and now Cabrera, their best hitter out as well, they have somehow managed to pull within 3½ games of the last wildcard spot going into last nights game (4 ½ out of the 1^st wild card spot as well as Oakland continues to sputter along, 9-21 since they got Jon Lester from Boston). If they can keep playing like they have over the last 2 weeks then they have a shot at earning one of the 2 playoff spots. When you factor in that they will also play Seattle, one of the teams ahead of them, 4 times during the last week of the season, you start to see that as long as they can continue to play the way they have of late, anything is possible. Call me an optimist but I still believe.