CHICAGO — Max Scherzer can’t identify the longest win streak he’s been a part of during his 18 big-league seasons and, “I don’t even care to know,” he points out.
“I know right now we all want to talk about streaks and the streak that we're on is great,” continued the Hall-of-Fame-bound right-hander. “And don't get me wrong, we're enjoying the absolute living daylights out of it. But it is less about the streak and more about how we're playing good baseball. We've been playing good baseball for the past six weeks. So to me, when you want to talk about the streak, I'm like, no, no, no, we've been playing good baseball. And I'd rather talk about that.”
Interesting perspective, as always, and we’ll get to that. For the record, Scherzer was twice part of 12-game win streaks with the Detroit Tigers, once in 2011 and again in 2013. When he won the World Series with the Washington Nationals in 2019 and the Texas Rangers in 2023, the longest runs for those teams were eight straight.
So, the 10-game win streak for his Toronto Blue Jays, which ended one game short of tying the club record Wednesday afternoon with a 2-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox, isn’t new, but neither is it a regular occurrence, even for good teams.
That being said, Scherzer’s wider point about the club’s successful rebound is what’s really relevant, since all streaks eventually end and meaningful conclusions are only drawn from larger sample sizes.
To that end, two arbitrary starting points the Blue Jays point to are an 8-5 comeback win in May at Anaheim against the Angels and a 2-0 victory May 28 at Texas, decided by Bo Bichette’s pinch-hit home run in the ninth inning. Since the first juncture, they are 38-19, and since the second, they are 28-11, catapulting them into the AL East lead at 54-39.
And it’s the traits they’ve shown during that span, emerging out of a cold April, that need to be sustained over the final 2 ½ months of the season to keep the good times rolling.
“The common theme you see right now,” said Scherzer, “is that when somebody makes a mistake, somebody picks them up; somebody makes an error, somebody makes a big pitch; somebody doesn't get the run in, somebody gets a big hit; reliever struggles, offence comes alive. We've always had an answer for any adversity right now.
“Hitters aren't going to get every hit. Fielders are going to make some errors. Pitchers are going to give up home runs. That's the way it goes,” he added. “But when we've had something bad happen, other guys find a way to cover up for that mistake and do something better. To me, that's the team stuff, an 'it' factor. It's hard to measure it, hard to describe it. But when you see it, you know it.”
The finale at Rate Field marked a rare recent outing when the big moment didn’t come.
Eric Lauer, so vital to the team’s turnaround, shook out his hand on his final pitch of the third, a slider that Chase Meidroth flew out to centre on, due to what he described as a “weird, slippery spot on the ball where my index finger was and … I was kind of in between if I wanted to throw the pitch or not.” He then grinded through a difficult fourth that included an Edgar Quero RBI double and a Lenyn Sosa RBI single that proved decisive.
“Mechanically, I was a little out of sync,” said Lauer. “Didn't have really the good fastball, but I thought we were able to mix other pitches, made it work. I was happy with the way that the sliders, cutters, curveballs were working.”
Lauer came out after that inning and then in the seventh, Ryan Burr walked off the mound after missing with a 2-2 slider due to shoulder pain. Catcher Tyler Heineman signalled to the dugout after the pitch and Burr, only activated from the IL July 5 after opening the season on the injured list with a shoulder injury, will head to Toronto for an MRI.
“Hope he's all right,” said manager John Schneider. “We'll know more after he gets the MRI done.”
The Blue Jays' offence, meanwhile, was kept in check over seven solid innings from Adrian Houser, who managed to prevent a second-inning rally after Heineman’s safety squeeze base hit plated Will Wagner with the game’s first run.
Leo Jimenez then sent a 105.5 m.p.h. liner right at first baseman Tim Elko, who doubled Myles Straw off at second to escape the jam and the Blue Jays tried to build a couple more innings but couldn’t capitalize.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ran into an out in the third, when he advanced to second on an errant Houser pickoff, but was caught trying to advance to third when the throw back into the infield squirted away at second, but not far enough.
In the sixth, Guerrero was caught in between when Addison Barger chopped a ball to Elko and the first baseman stepped on the bag and then fired to second to complete the double play.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit on the bases today,” said Schneider, “and Houser is good, he was good against us at our place ... he keeps you on ground, limits some damage.”
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Guerrero also grounded out after Bo Bichette’s two-out double off Grant Taylor in the eighth and is now 7-for-32 with two RBIs, which both came Tuesday, in eight July games. Jordan Leasure closed things out in the ninth after surrendering a two-out pinch-hit single to Alejandro Kirk.
“At some point in time he's going to get on a heater and he'll end up carrying us for a while,” Schneider said of Guerrero. “He just can't try to do too much. Let the game come to him, be who he is. He is who he is for a reason. And fully confident that his turn is coming.”
A full bullpen, something Schneider quipped he didn’t remember having since “March 28, opening day,” came in handy due to the short Lauer outing, with Braydon Fisher, Brendon Little, Burr and Yariel Rodriguez jumping aboard.
After an off-day Thursday, the Blue Jays play three in Sacramento against the Athletics, against whom they’ll seek a final push before the all-star break.
“What you take out of (the 10-game streak) is that you start a new one on Friday,” said Schneider. “You win the series here, we can't forget about that, that's the goal every single series and the things that we have been doing, you just continue to do, between pitching, offence, defence, bases. I've said it through this whole thing: there's a lot of sustainable stuff that will allow you to continue to win and be in ballgames. Today just wasn't our best game.”
