TORONTO, Ont. – The Toronto Blue Jays opened the month of June by completing their first sweep of the season with a shutout win over the New York Yankees. The 7-0 whitewash wrapped up a very impressive 5-1 homestand and was the Jays’ tenth victory in their last 13 games, pushing the team three games over .500 for the first time this season.
A major-league baseball season is usually played out over six months, from the beginning of April to the end of September, though it’s not always so neat and tidy. But in the case of the 2016 Blue Jays, it pretty much is. They played exactly one-third of their schedule over the season’s first two months, opening the second third with Wednesday night’s win. Barring any postponements, the final third of the Jays’ season is set to begin on July 31st – trade deadline day – when they host the Baltimore Orioles to wrap up a nine-game homestand.
The Blue Jays wound up 28-26 over the first third of the season despite separate 1-6, 1-5 and 2-5 runs, a drastically underperforming offence and a very shaky bullpen beyond Roberto Osuna and Rule 5 gem Joe Biagini. Their longest winning streak was four games and their longest losing streak was five. Over the season’s first 54 games, the Jays were within a game of the .500 mark – above or below – 32 times.
They also saw their divisional rivals a whole lot. The Jays opened the season in St. Petersburg against the Rays and closed the first third at home against the Yankees. In total, they’ve played 32 games against their American League East foes, going 17-15, paced by their 7-2 mark against the Bronx Not-So-Bombers.
The Jays have already played half their season series against the Red Sox (5-5), Rays (4-6) and Yankees and will only see those teams for one series each until September – the meeting with the Red Sox beginning Friday night at Fenway. They’ll get a healthy dose of the Orioles, though, hooking up with the black and orange birds six times between June 9th and 19th. The O’s have played .500 ball since starting the season with seven straight wins, despite having another seven-game win streak mixed in in early May.
What’s in store for the Blue Jays as they move into third number two? Bullpen help, one hopes.
Jason Grilli made his Jays’ debut Wednesday night and, despite making an error before throwing his first pitch, got a huge out in a high-leverage situation, stranding a pair of inherited runners and maintaining the two-run lead he was brought in to protect. If Grilli can be a solid contributor – he doesn’t have to be the all-star he was in 2013, just the guy he was for the Braves last season – that would give Toronto’s much-maligned relief corps a healthy boost.
So would the return of Brett Cecil, who threw all of one inning in May before being placed on the disabled list with a triceps injury that should keep him out of action for at least another two weeks. Cecil had a rough time in April, with three blown saves and five losses, but his post-April numbers over the past three years are extremely strong – a 2.51 ERA, 1.10 WHIP and 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings. A healthy Cecil should be a massive weapon once he returns.
Jesse Chavez had a very encouraging outing in his last appearance, but he still has a long way to go. Aaron Loup did give up a mammoth two-run homer to lefty Brian McCann on Monday night, but his outings on either side of that were perfect, and don’t look now, but Drew Storen was scored upon in only two of his 11 sorties in May, with 12 strikeouts in 9.1 innings. He has a long way to go too, but could be coming around.
Through their first third of the season, the 2016 Blue Jays were four games better than last year’s eventual A.L. East Champions, though the 2015 club opened their second third with ten straight wins after a big victory in game number 54.
Obviously, the Blue Jays improved drastically at the trade deadline last season, but some of those major improvements are still in place. They needed defence at shortstop, they have that now. They needed a real left-fielder. Check. They needed bullpen help. They’ll probably still need some of that this year, but relievers don’t cost much. Grilli came over for nothing, as did Mark Lowe last July. And LaTroy Hawkins was a throw-in in the Troy Tulowitzki trade. Last year, they got a boost when Aaron Sanchez moved into the bullpen. The same thing will happen this year.
Oh, and there was that whole David Price thing. Well, this year’s J.A. Happ is filling that role rather nicely so far, which is huge for the Jays because they were only counting on him to be their fourth starter. It was Marcus Stroman who was tabbed to carry Price’s load, and though Stroman has struggled lately, there’s no question that he has the stuff and the command to be a big piece. Even if he isn’t, though, he’ll fit in nicely behind Happ and Marco Estrada, both of whom have been incredible to start the season.
Of course, R.A. Dickey is due for his annual correction, as well. Over his Blue Jays career, the knuckleballer has posted a 3.42 ERA and 1.150 WHIP from June on, and the Jays have won 57.8 per cent of his post-May starts since he arrived – a pace that translates to 94 wins over a full season. He’s coming off a better start to the season than usual, too. Dickey’s 4.64 ERA and 1.318 WHIP far this season are better than the 4.95 and 1.384 he’d racked up over April and May the previous three years.
There’s an old adage that the first two months of a season are for evaluating, the next two are for fixing and the last two are for winning. That formula sort of held true for the 2015 Blue Jays (the fixing didn’t happen until the last week of July) but, barring significant injuries, the 2016 version doesn’t need the radical mid-stream reconstruction that last year’s squad did.
Over the first two months of this season, the Blue Jays’ starting pitching overperformed and the offence disappointed. The bats have started to come around over this recent streak – there have been late-inning rallies against Craig Kimbrel, Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman, some of the best bullpen arms in the business. The Jays have scored seven runs or more in four of their last eight games after doing so only five times in their first 47. They’re 10-3 since Jose Bautista moved into the leadoff spot and 7-1 since Devon Travis was activated off the disabled list.
There were some big-time bumps along the way, to be sure, and by no means are they out of the woods, but the Blue Jays have moved into the season’s second third playing their best baseball yet.
