Since the great transactional commotion in late July, Blue Jays fans have become acquainted with anxieties that they’d either forgotten or never felt until now.
This includes checking the out-of-town scores, and even sitting through full New York Yankees games to keep tabs on the most pertinent rival. It also means fretting over teams that seem to be rolling just as they are about to play the Jays, and mindfully looking ahead at the schedule to see which hot teams or pitchers are up next.
Given how well the Blue Jays have played – their 21-4 record since the Troy Tulowitzki deal translates to close to a month of .840 baseball – the schedule down the stretch might seem to be a small concern. But as nice as a two-game lead in the divisional race might feel today, it is no cushion at all. Those of us who remember the pennant chases of 1987 or 1990 and still bear the emotional scars of late season collapses can’t get too smug or satisfied with so many games left.
Even on the cusp of September, it’s still a long season.
Looking ahead, the Blue Jays will spend the majority of their remaining schedule settling up with their AL East rivals. This includes seven games against each of the Yankees and Baltimore Orioles and six games apiece versus the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox.
The Yankees are obviously the Jays’ biggest concern, and the last home series against that aging but talented team was a reminder that their extended stay at the top of the division has not been a fluke. In that series and even in the series in which the Jays swept them earlier in the month, Yankees pitching has done a remarkable job of keeping the best offence in baseball in check.
Both the Orioles and Rays have slumped in recent weeks, but they remain dangerous teams who both play the Jays tough, and seem to delight in getting under the Jays’ skin. The Red Sox have more than their share of issues, but they’ve managed a decent run in the past two weeks, going 8-5 while scoring 94 runs, 21 more than even the Jays over that time.
Generally, AL East teams have played tough against each other this year. In fact, the early-season perception that the division was in decline might have come from the schedule heavily-weighted towards intradivisional play in the early part of the season, as these teams beat up on each other through the spring. Even as the Blue Jays climb as high above .500 as they’ve been in decades, they still stand at just 7-6 against Boston, 7-5 against the Orioles, and 5-8 versus the Rays.
Moreover, they have posted marks of 1-2 thus far against both the Atlanta Braves and the Detroit Tigers, two other teams who they’ll face in the coming days and weeks.
The Blue Jays have also used up all of their surplus off days at this point, and won’t have extra rest on their side in the final five weeks. To top it all off, the Blue Jays will play their final seven games on the road, which could become a factor if the division title is still in play in the final days of the season.
Having articulated this instinctive worry, there might have been a better argument for concern a month ago, as the Jays prepared to face multiple playoff contenders, including several they were chasing. A month of series against the Royals, Twins, Yankees, Angels and Rangers might have given one cause for concern. As it turns out, one of the thrilling aspects of this team’s extraordinary run has been the very fact that when faced with putative contenders, the Blue Jays have shoved them aside rudely and left most them to limp away from the series, looking like bruised pretenders.
It would be uncouth to just expect the Blue Jays to continue along at an .800 clip through the rest of the season. It’s likely that one of the aforementioned teams could swipe a series win away, and we shouldn’t be shocked if that happens more than once. This isn’t like a stacked mid-conference college basketball team, rolling over middling opponents until they reach the tournament in March. In a highly-competitive era of baseball with exceptional parity, the Blue Jays won’t romp through this crucial last stretch of the season.
It’s going to fun, but it won’t be easy.