The Toronto Blue Jays stayed within a half-game of the final American League wild-card race with a win Tuesday night, furthering their chase for a playoff spot.
The Jays picked up ground on three teams last night and, after their upcoming weekend series with the New York Yankees, aren’t scheduled to play a team currently over .500 the rest of the season. Could the Jays’ recent surge of momentum, coupled with their favourable schedule the rest of the way, give them pole position for the AL’s final playoff spot?
Not exactly, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney.
“The American League right now is a random series of coin flips,” Olney told hosts Carlo Colaiacovo and Matthew Cauz with a laugh Wednesday morning.
However, Olney does believe the Blue Jays’ experience from last year’s World Series run could help separate them.
“I really think that the Jays’ advantage is that they’ve gone down this playoff path. I think that, if you’re the players there, a lot of their guys have just recently gone through a stretch of games where they’ve played a lot of meaningful games and a lot of big moments. That, to me, is their advantage,” Olney said.
“All the experience coming into play, that to me is what might separate the Blue Jays from the other teams. But again, I think we can overthink it because it’s really going to come down to who gets hot, you know, for four days.”
The Texas Rangers, who currently occupy the AL’s final playoff spot, are two games below .500 at 62-64. The Jays are right on their tail at 62-65 and tied with the Minnesota Twins. The Cleveland Guardians, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners are all within three games or fewer of the Rangers.
That’s a total of seven teams vying for one last playoff spot, assuming the Boston Red Sox maintain their six-game cushion for the second wild-card spot behind the New York Yankees, who are eight and a half games up in the top wild-card spot.
While the condensed playoff picture makes it a difficult task for the Jays to claim that final spot, Olney points out that whoever does make the postseason is going to have a chance at making a deep run because of the flawed nature of the AL’s top contenders.
“The Tampa Bay Rays, and the Yankees, and the Red Sox are clearly the best teams in the American League. They’ve each got their own problems. Like, the Rays have really struggled of late. They’re not a great team. The Yankees have offensive issues. Max Fried goes on the injured list yesterday, the theoretical strength of what that team was. So that’s gone. Garrett Crochet is just starting to play catch, we don’t know if he’s going to be a factor,” Olney explained.
This means that if the Jays can find their way in, a repeat of last year’s playoff run doesn’t feel impossible.
“You really can dream, if you’re the Blue Jays, if you find your way into the third wild-card spot, the American League Field is so mediocre that you can dream of going back to the World Series. Which sounds insane, but that’s the way it is,” Olney said.
Toronto is 16-9 in their past 23 games and have won six of their previous eight. Monday’s win was a good sign considering the Jays’ struggles against the Rays this season and Tropicana Field historically.
The Jays moved to 3-8 against the Rays this season and are now 30-52 at The Trop since 2017. They’ll finish with a losing record against the Rays this season for the ninth time in a row. Over that span, they are a combined 51-84. The last season the Jays had a winning record against the Rays was in 2017, when they were 10-9.
Considering the standings, the Jays will have to keep their foot on the gas for not only the rest of the series, but the remainder of the season.
Max Scherzer takes the hill against Rays’ ace Drew Rasmussen Wednesday evening before Shane Bieber starts for the series finale Thursday afternoon against Ian Seymour.
