BALTIMORE - The opening pitch of the 2017 Major League Baseball season has yet to be thrown for the Toronto Blue Jays and already the team is dealing with its first bout with adversity.

Closer Roberto Osuna has been placed on the 10-day disabled list, suffering from a cervical spasm in his upper back and neck. A source close to the Blue Jays told TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips that it’s not considered to be a serious injury and the team is optimistic the 22-year-old Osuna will be back later in April, healthy and able to effectively resume his duties as closer.

The injury to Osuna comes right before a season when the Blue Jays are chasing a bit of history. The last time the team advanced to the postseason in three straight years, it was the heady days of the franchise from 1991 to 1993. 

Toronto capped off that run with back-to-back World Series championships. Now, with a new season set to begin, the question lingers: Is the stage legitimately set for another postseason three-peat? 

Beyond the injury to Osuna, the rest of Toronto’s bullpen and the starting pitching staff will begin the season healthy and Josh Donaldson appears to have put his spring training calf injury behind him.

The 2017 version of the Blue Jays largely resembles last year’s lineup, but with one crucial change to the roster. Kendrys Morales essentially takes the place of Edwin Encarnacion, who signed with the Cleveland Indians as free agent during the off-season. Morales will be called upon to help replace Encarnacion’s 42 home runs and 127 runs batted in. 

If Morales’ season resembles his 30 home run, 93 RBI season from 2016, it will fall short of Encarnacion’s output last year, but the Blue Jays would likely happily take it and look for added offence from a healthy and rejuvenated Jose Bautista.

“Bautista is critical to the Jays offensive success. They desperately need him to stay in the middle of the order and be a run producer,” said Phillips. “He has a knack of driving in runs. I have every expectation that Bautista will be a 30-homer guy with an OPS above .900 as long as he is healthy.”

Put it all together and manager John Gibbons, who was just rewarded for his recent run of success with a contract extension through 2019, thinks the Blue Jays are primed for a third straight run of October baseball – 24 years after the last one. 

“Things have been good here the last couple of years. It was a long drought,” said Gibbons, whose new contract also includes a club option for 2020. “We still feel we’re good enough to win it all. I like our team.”

The American League East is tough – it’s always tough. The Red Sox finished in first place last year with 93 wins and they still carry the look of a team on the rise. Slugger David Ortiz has retired but off-season acquisition Chris Sale joins a Red Sox starting rotation that already features David Price and Rick Porcello. 

“The AL East is a two-team race and the Jays and Red Sox are the cream of the crop, said Phillips. “Both teams have pitching depth, are solid defensively and can score runs a number of different ways.”

The Blue Jays will open the season with two games in Baltimore followed by a four-game series in Tampa Bay before opening at home on April 11 against the Milwaukee Brewers.