TORONTO – Two weeks of stellar play have changed the Toronto Blue Jays’ outlook dramatically.
The Tampa Bay Rays left Toronto on May 18 having outscored the Blue Jays by an embarrassing 31-7 margin over the course of a three-game sweep. The Blue Jays hadn’t hit all year. The annual questions about John Gibbons’ job security resurfaced.
The Blue Jays have since rebounded, going 10-3 and winning their last four series, including the three-game sweep of the New York Yankees they completed Wednesday. The Blue Jays are scoring five runs per game during that stretch, easing concerns about the offence. At 29-26, they’re three games over .500 for the first time in 2016.
“We never had any worries from the beginning,” said Aaron Sanchez, whose strong start figured prominently in the Blue Jays’ latest win, a 7-0 victory in front of 39,512 at Rogers Centre.
The win completes a 5-1 homestand that provides reason to believe the playoffs are again within reach. The Blue Jays are playing some of their best baseball yet.
“We hope so. Really, we’re playing good baseball all the way around,” Gibbons said. “It’s still so early in the season, but we’re playing better baseball. I still don’t think we’ve hit our stride yet.”
Sanchez delivered yet another strong start, allowing seven hits over 6.2 scoreless innings. He walked two while striking out six — including at least one whiff on his fastball, curve and change.
“Sanchie’s on a nice little roll,” Gibbons said. “He just keeps getting better and better.”
A year ago this week, Sanchez made his final start of the 2015 season, pitching a gem against the Houston Astros that preceded a lengthy DL stint. Twelve months later the Blue Jays have a more refined, more durable pitcher. Questions about Sanchez’s workload will soon surface, but in the meantime, the production is there.
“He’s a strong young kid,” Gibbons said. “He’s doing a hell of a job, he really is.”
Josh Donaldson drove in the quietly productive Darwin Barney to give the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead and the Blue Jays later plated a leadoff double by Michael Saunders, but that was all they managed against Masahiro Tanaka, who held Toronto to two runs on six innings while pitching on four days’ rest instead of the preferred five.
Early on Donaldson showed off his athleticism behind Sanchez, making one of the team’s more impressive defensive plays of 2016. Donaldson deflected an Alex Rodriguez grounder back and to his left, barehanded it, and threw on the run to retire Rodriguez. The play helped Sanchez escape the second inning unscathed.
With three hits, Barney is batting .344 with an .846 OPS — gaudy numbers for a player best known for his glove. Earlier this year he looked at video with hitting coach Brook Jacoby to replicate some of his early-career successes.
“For a while there I made the wrong adjustments,” Barney said. “I’m (now) seeing it well, putting good at-bats together. A good spot to hit in this lineup is ninth, where you’ve got (power hitters) behind you.”
Thanks in part to Barney, the Blue Jays’ bats finally broke through against the Yankees bullpen with a bat-around seventh inning. Edwin Encarnacion and Michael Saunders delivered RBI doubles, setting up Justin Smoak‘s two-run single, as the Blue Jays scored five times.
Jason Grilli made his Blue Jays debut, picking up Sanchez in the seventh inning by immediately throwing a pickoff attempt into centre field. He stayed calm — “there’s three bases before they touch home” — and retired Blue Jays nemesis Carlos Beltran. After the Blue Jays widened the gap, Aaron Loup and Ryan Tepera combined to close out the game.
Now 7-2 against the Yankees, the Blue Jays are hoping for more intra-divisional success against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park this weekend.
“No one in here really doubted that we were a well-rounded team,” Barney said. “It’s starting to show a little bit. We’ve got a big series coming up. We’ve got to keep it going.”