TORONTO – Charlie Montoyo insists that he doesn’t look at the standings, picking up on them only through osmosis unless he’s at Fenway Park, where they can’t be missed at the bottom of the Green Monster. The Toronto Blue Jays manager often repeated the same thing last summer, so it appears he’s very much sticking to that story. “I never look at it,” he said. “I just care about playing every day and worrying about the game in hand.”
OK, fair enough, and worth remembering is that it isn’t even June yet, so the usual sample-size caveats apply. But roughly a quarter of the way through the season, the American League East is becoming a really interesting place, with the Blue Jays now a half-game back of the Boston Red Sox after an 8-0 victory over the division front-runners Tuesday night.
Hyun-Jin Ryu again pitched like an ace, Danny Jansen, Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette each had key hits off Eduardo Rodriguez in another collective offensive effort, and the bullpen mopped up a sixth win in seven outings. Yet even as they’ve enjoyed that run, there are still only 1½ games between the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees.
With four games against the visiting Rays after the Red Sox series followed by a three-game set at the Yankees, this stretch of schedule very much feels like an early-season litmus test. This is also a period of internal assessments at both the big-league and minor-league levels as part of the extensive groundwork that takes place well ahead of the trade deadline, and just as it was during the off-season, this summer is go-time for the Blue Jays. President and CEO Mark Shapiro put it this way back in the spring: “There will be some trades that are uncharacteristic of what we’ve done in the past, and there’ll be some continued acquisitions in free agency.”
That the Blue Jays are playing their steadiest ball of the season right now bodes well for a stretch sure to loom larger down the road.
“Most definitely,” said Randal Grichuk. “There’s a lot of baseball left and if we didn’t have a good series with all three of them, obviously there’s still a great chance that we can play well in the last four months and make the playoffs. But I think it is a chance for us to buy in even more, or let people know what the Blue Jays are made of offensively, defensively and pitching by playing Boston, Tampa, New York, back-to-back-to-back.”
Ryu went seven innings for the second straight start and third time overall, pinning the Red Sox on their heels by mostly throwing fastballs away while mixing in his changeup, cutter and curveball.
In the first, for example, he froze Rafael Devers by painting a fastball low and away before popping him up in the fourth on a full-count curveball with men on the corners and less than two outs, leaving the young slugger muttering to himself both times.
“He was vintage Ryu, throwing strikes with all his pitches, keeping hitters off balance,” said Montoyo. “Like me watching the game, I didn’t know what pitch was coming next, and that’s when he’s really good.”
After the Devers popper, Christian Vazquez flew out to left to end the inning and preserve a 1-0 Blue Jays lead, with Semien’s two-out flare in the bottom half plating a pair of runs, one on a Hunter Renfroe throwing error, and Bichette’s double bringing home another.
Ryu and his teammates didn’t let the Red Sox off the mat from there, and the left-hander’s carrying of quality bulk in consecutive outings after a short stint on the injured list is critical for a rotation still searching for consistency. He went seven innings only once last season.
“I feel really good right now physically and I’m going to prepare myself in the near future so I can continue to do what I’ve been doing the last couple of outings,” Ryu said through interpreter J.S. Park. “I feel really good. I don’t feel any hesitation or any discomfort in my body.”
RBI singles from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the fifth and Teoscar Hernandez in the sixth, plus Grichuk’s two-run homer in the eighth kept building on to the advantage opened on Jansen’s two-out RBI single in the second, as the Blue Jays enjoyed a low-leverage night against baseball’s third-most productive offence.
“Obviously we’re in there trying to get hits no matter what the night is, if we get no-hit or if we get 20 hits,” said Grichuk. “But with everybody hitting, you just take a different attitude in there, a different confidence, not even really knowing why or that you are. It’s kind of one of those crazy things about baseball, there’s a lot that you can’t really explain. But a night where a pitcher’s dealing or guys are putting the ball in play softly, that’s contagious. Just like tonight.
“You don’t want to be that guy left out and everybody else is swinging it and in good moods and cheering you on and you’re cheering them on. It just feeds through each other and into the box.”
It was the latest vision of what this team can be as bigger-picture machinations are underway.
Alek Manoah, the right-hander whose electric spring and dominant beginning at triple-A Buffalo have made him the next focal-point prospect, had his start pushed back from Tuesday to Wednesday, lining up his day with that of Ross Stripling, who’s set to start against Garrett Richards. Thomas Hatch, recovering from an elbow injury, starts Thursday for the Bisons followed by Nate Pearson on Friday, as the internal reinforcements push for their spots.
Meanwhile, the Blue Jays’ prospect capital was highlighted this week when Baseball America released its latest Top 100 list, featuring a major-league best eight players in the Blue Jays system. Combined with the savings from Kirby Yates’ budgeted incentives and other available budget, and GM Ross Atkins will have some serious spending power come July.
Gabriel Moreno joins the Top this morning.
Toronto now has 8 Top 100 Prospects.
That's the most in baseball.
Austin Martin
Nate Pearson
Jordan Groshans
Simeon Woods Richardson
Alejandro Kirk
Orelvis Martinez
Alek Manoah
Gabriel MorenoFull list: https://t.co/UfBZeOOnMf pic.twitter.com/VaxqFrYeJg
— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) May 17, 2021
In the interim, the Blue Jays need to do their part on the field to show that this is the time to keep adding, starting with this current stretch against their rivals in the ever-competitive AL East.
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