Cito Gaston’s calm demeanour and steady hand has the Blue Jays looking very much like a playoff team.

Whether they can overcome their worst enemy – a shrinking schedule – and reach that Promised Land is another thing.

The Jays return from a near perfect road trip, 5-1 against the Tigers and Red Sox, where the pitchers pitched, the hitters hit and the defence was airtight, and have become a team to reckon with as the regular season hits the t-minus six weeks remaining mark. If not for a hiccup by Jason Frasor in the final game in Detroit, the team would have won all six games, most of them quite handily. All told, they outhit the opposition 65-46 and outscored them, 27-19, with Sunday’s 15-4 thrashing of the World Champion Red Sox, in the Sox’ own house no less, providing one of the highlights of this uneven season.

The Jays returned home from this ultra-successful road trip and were feted with an off-day before greeting the Yankees and Red Sox at the Rogers Centre beginning on Tuesday. With the way that they swung the sticks on Sunday at Fenway, most probably wished that they could right back at it without the 24-hour break, but they are right smack dab in the middle of the so-called ‘Dog Days’ of the season so the day off provided a welcomed respite.

Gaston should receive any and all accolades for the Jays’ play of late. Reminiscent of his team’s turnaround in 1989 when he took over a 12-24 group of underachievers and charged them to the franchise’s second A.L. East title, Cito has settled on an everyday line-up and stuck with it. Three players have benefited greatly from this: Rod Barajas, John McDonald and Adam Lind.

Barajas is now the No. 1 catcher and although his batting average has dropped more than 50 points since the coaching changes, he is in lock-step with the pitching staff and the days of the opposition running wild on the bases is over.

McDonald, he of the Gold Glove but balsa wood bat, is back to being the everyday shortstop, something that should have started on Opening Day but wasn’t possible with the offence going so poorly and the constant justification for the unneeded off-season signing of David Eckstein. McDonald is again providing highlight-reel plays on a nightly basis and he’s been hitting 20 points above his career average since Cito returned to the bench.

And then there’s soft spoken left fielder Lind, who John Gibbons had no patience for as he managed for his professional life. Told by Cito upon his return that he would be in the line-up every day, Lind has done nothing but hit. His .329 average, eight home runs and 34 RBI since June 20th (the day of Gaston’s re-hiring) lead all Jays’ hitters in those categories over that timeframe and his .532 slugging percentage is also tops among Toronto hitters.

The hitters aren’t the only ones to have enjoyed great success under the new/old skipper. A.J. Burnett has won nine of his 11 starts with Cito at the helm, averaging more than one strikeout per inning in the process. Scott Downs, before spraining his ankle last week in Detroit, is now the permanent eighth-inning set-up man for closer B.J. Ryan and is enjoying one of the best relief seasons in franchise history. And fire-balling Brandon League, who appeared to be running out of chances with the team, has harnessed his blazing fastball, allowing just three earned runs over his past 15 outings while holding the opposition to a .215 batting average.

Time, though, not the Red Sox, Yankees, Twins or White Sox, has become the Blue Jays’ worst enemy. Games that were wasted away in the first half have now made their task of getting back into the race more daunting. They have 32 of their final 38 games remaining against teams either ahead of them in the A.L. East or the Wild Card. A daunting task, indeed, but they are in control of their own destiny.

If they fall short, which is likely, the 15th consecutive season of not making the playoffs will not be a total loss. The return of Cito Gaston to his place by the bat rack, with a promise to return in 2009 and start anew, should give Jays fans a reason to be optimistic.

KINDER, GENTLER RED SOX

From everything that I’ve read and heard over the weekend in Boston, the Manny Ramirez-to-the-Dodgers deal could not have come at a better time. The "Manny Being Manny" show had run its course to the point that it was the other veterans in the clubhouse that went to management and said enough was enough. However, the Red Sox line-up is not nearly as scary as when Manny was in the cleanup spot, and no offence intended to Jason Bay. And when the games become ultra-important after Labour Day, no matter how much of a hassle Ramirez was, they are going to miss him. It will also be interesting to see how his act plays out in Los Angeles with the Dodgers battling the Diamondbacks to win the N.L. West. I’m sure that Terry Francona wishes his old foe Joe Torre all the best. At least Manny’s not his headache anymore.