TORONTO – This year’s Toronto Blue Jays–Boston Red Sox rivalry is already off to a strong start.
After 15 games, the Blue Jays have eight wins to Boston’s seven. There’s been just one blowout: The Friday night clunker that John Gibbons aptly described as ‘rotten.’ Otherwise the scores have been close, with five one-run games and six two-run games. We’ve seen some pretty entertaining baseball.
And yet this rivalry’s pretty clearly about to become more compelling on a lot of levels.
Short-term, there’s Sunday’s rubber-match. David Ortiz makes his final regular season appearance in Toronto and Aaron Sanchez pitches on regular rest for the first time since the All-Star break as the Blue Jays look to re-claim a share of first place in the AL East.
Look a few weeks ahead and the stakes could be even higher. The Blue Jays and Red Sox finish the season with three games at Fenway Park, and the way this year’s unfolded, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if it takes 160-plus games for one of these teams to pop champagne. They could easily be tied after 162 games, in which case they’d play one game on the first Monday of October to decide the AL East winner (in that scenario the team that won the season series would host game 163 with the AL Wild Card game taking place the following day).
Medium-term, there’s plenty more intrigue considering that Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion are both on the brink of free agency at a time that Boston’s longtime designated hitter is retiring. Ortiz has hinted at the possibility of Encarnacion replacing him, which was enough to frighten many Blue Jays fans. The Red Sox don’t necessarily need Bautista or Encarnacion considering their deep pool of position players, but the possibility surely warrants consideration for the Boston front office, if only to create interference for other bidders.
Long-term, it really gets interesting. Players like Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts are just entering their prime years, creating optimism in Boston.
“If you do things well as an organization you can not only be good now, but in the future,” Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski said. “You have a foundation of guys like Mookie and Xander and Jackie Bradley Jr. who all started on the All-Star team, plus we have other young players on the big league club, Eduardo Rodriguez and guys like (Yoan) Moncada and (Andrew) Benintendi just breaking in. We have some good depth in the minor league system behind that, so you’re in a position if you do things well and make wise decisions you can hopefully be good for an extended period.”
The potentially scary part for the rest of the American League? These players are affordable enough that the Red Sox can spend aggressively in free agency when needed (e.g. on David Price ). As Dombrowski puts it, ‘you have the ability to build in cost certainty to balance things out.’
It all starts with young talent, though, and in that respect the Red Sox are in an enviable position (thanks in large part to former Boston GM Ben Cherington). Observers around the game seem genuinely impressed by a talent base that includes top prospects like third baseman Rafael Devers and left-handed starter Jason Groome. There’s lots of development remaining for many of these players — Moncada’s inattentive baserunning and streak of eight consecutive strikeouts make that much clear — but this group’s elite.
“Your best organizations I think have a constant flow,” Dombrowski said. “Here we have young players and we do have veterans like Big Papi, Dustin Pedroia, Hanley Ramirez, Koji (Uehara) — now as those guys retire, you’re in a position where young guys can step up and be your leaders and then you’re in that kind of cycle where you’re contenders for years to come.”
That’s the dream, and right now it’s reality for the Red Sox. As for the Blue Jays, they’re facing a different type of transition this winter, when they’ll likely have to get creative while awaiting the arrival of their next wave of prospects, most of whom remain in the lower minors. While the Red Sox could look pretty similar in 2017, there’s a good chance next year’s Blue Jays team looks considerably different.
All of that’s in the distant future, though. For now the Blue Jays and Red Sox will turn their focus to the high-stakes games remaining.
