OAKLAND, Calif. — A week ago, the Toronto Blue Jays' season very much appeared to be on the brink, the losses of Bo Bichette and Matt Chapman to injury preceding a gutting 5-4 loss to the Washington Nationals that dropped the club 3.5 games back of the third wild card spot.
September baseball, however, can get crazy fast, and a fifth win in six games, 7-1 over the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday night, in combination with the ongoing Texas Rangers’ slide, put the Blue Jays back in possession of the American League’s final post-season berth.
At 77-62, the Blue Jays are now a half-game up on the 76-62 Rangers, who lost for the 13th time in 18 games, 14-1 to the AL West-leading Houston Astros (79-61), who are atop the AL West. Toronto is also a half-game back of the Seattle Mariners (77-61) for the second wild-card spot, making for a jumbled mix of four teams fighting for three playoff spots.
By no means does this mean the Blue Jays are home free — they’re far from that.
But with one more game against the A’s before returning home to open a three-game set against the similarly woeful Kansas City Royals on Friday, the Blue Jays have a chance to build some padding before a pivotal clash against the Rangers in Toronto starting Monday opens a difficult three-week stretch to the finish line.
“I asked the guys on the bus the other day when we left the Rogers Centre on the way to Colorado, I said, ‘September, we all feel not great right now, show me who the gamers are,’” relayed Kevin Kiermaier, who had three hits including an RBI single that opened the scoring during the six-run seventh inning. “And I know we have plenty of gamers in that clubhouse, so we're right where we need to be. We know there's a lot of baseball left to be played, maybe some more ups and downs yet to come. But we roll with the punches and we show up every day expecting to win, we're starting to get some momentum rolling for us, feeling really good about ourselves and clicking at the right time.”
Kiermaier’s pivotal single was followed by a two-run single by George Springer that extended the advantage and ensured that a terrific outing by Chris Bassitt, who allowed one run over eight masterful innings, didn’t go to waste.
The Blue Jays squandered opportunities in the second, third and sixth innings against A’s starter Ken Waldichuk before finally breaking through against the Oakland bullpen, when Zach Neal walked the bases loaded before Sam Long surrendered the damage.
After the Kiermaier and Springer singles made it 3-0, Davis Schneider added a run-scoring double, Whit Merrifield hit a sacrifice fly and Cavan Biggio, who opened the inning with a walk, took another base on balls that forced in a sixth run.
Springer added another RBI single in the eighth as the Blue Jays gave themselves a rare outing free of late-game leverage to cap a wild week of standings swing.
“It's understanding that we are in a good position,” Springer said of the mentality needed in the moment. “Yeah, obviously you would want to be in a much easier position, but that's not the case. But guys understand, I understand that you just have to go play and you can't take anybody for granted. You have to treat every day as if it could be your last. When you slow the game down a little bit, one, enjoy it, but two, understand that we're fighting for our lives, it makes it fun but there is a sense of urgency, as well.”
Bassitt was again the lynchpin, delivering a second straight eight-inning performance.
The leadoff man reached against him in the first two innings and were both promptly erased by double-play balls before Bassitt stranded Zack Gelof’s leadoff double in the fourth. All in all, he allowed only a run on seven hits with seven strikeouts, precisely what was needed from him.
“We're showing a lot of maturity behind the scenes in not chasing a 3-1/2 game deficit within one game, said Bassitt. “Just concentrate on ourselves, win every series. If we win every series the rest of the way we're going to be world champions. That's the way it is. So just win every series, worry about one game at a time. We've got to worry about tomorrow, not worry about what everyone's doing and that's it. If you worry about what everyone's doing, if you worry about how many games back or how many games up we are, it's just too much crap to worry about. Just worry about your job and worry about yourself.”
That’s especially applicable now for the Blue Jays as they await the returns of Bichette, Chapman, Danny Jansen and Erik Swanson. Helping to cover the gap have been contributions from the triple-A Buffalo brigade and a reliance on near full-roster usage during games, which has timed up nicely with a soft spot in the schedule.
"Yeah, baseball's crazy, right?” said manager John Schneider.” There are ups and downs. We could have just said, 'OK, we got two dudes hurt and that's tough.' And we did the exact opposite. There's still a whole lot of baseball left. This part of the of the schedule, when we get home against Texas, you can't look ahead. They're all going to be big games. But it changes every night, you know what I mean? Just really, really proud of the way that they've come together and embraced an all-hands-on-deck approach.”
As for reclaiming possession of a playoff spot, John Schneider said “that’s great” but more importantly, “Everything that we want to accomplish, I think, is still in front of us.”
“There are still a lot of games to be played” said Schneider. “I'll be way happier at the end of the season when we're in that position than we are right now.”
Rightly so, although where the Blue Jays are now is a whole lot more comfortable than where they were a mere week ago.
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