What a bizarre season 2026 is turning out to be.
There are still 12 American League teams within at least three and a half games of the third wild-card spot. We are just over three-quarters of the way through the season, and it has been like this all year. There is still plenty of time for someone to get hot and separate from the pack like what the Boston Red Sox did by winning 32 of 37 games. At least the Red Sox got hot. None of the other wild card contenders can seem to get enough traction to separate from the others.
There is a collection of teams that continue to jockey back and forth in the third wild-card spot. There have been eight changes in the teams or the seeding among the wild-card leaders since the All-Star break. That doesn’t consider the teams that have been leap-frogging each other just outside of the chasing teams.
The Toronto Blue Jays are two games shy of the third wild-card spot, which currently belongs to the Detroit Tigers as of Friday morning. The Jays (59-64) have the 10th best record in the American League. In addition to the Tigers, the Rangers, Twins, Guardians and Orioles are ahead of or tied with the Jays.
The Jays have the eighth easiest schedule for the remainder of the season. The key for Toronto will be the next nine games in which they will play the AL East-leading Rays three times and the top wild-card team, the Yankees, six times. The Jays are 31-41 against teams .500 or better. After the Rays and Yankees series, the Jays don’t have a single game against a team over .500. The schedule is certainly in their favour from here on out.
The Jays have won six of their last 10 and three of their last four, so it feels like they have some momentum. They can absolutely make a run, but the issues that have worked against them all season are still there: a lack of offence and pitching injuries.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s seven home runs suggest he’s still struggling to drive the ball, but it’s not just him. The Jays are ranked 29th in runs scored which indicates that the offensive woes are more than just Vladdy’s struggles.
Injuries to the starting rotation leave gaps in covering innings and shifts pressure on the bullpen. Recent injuries to Jameson Taillon (forearm tightness) and Trey Yesavage (knee surgery) reduces the impact and experience factor in the rotation. It puts more pressure on the other starters as well as the bullpen. They Jays only have four healthy starters now and may have to implement a bullpen day.
This makes things even more complicated as the Jays have the most overworked bullpen in baseball. John Schneider has made 449 pitching changes though Thursday which is 31 more than the second ranked team. There are 14 relievers who have appeared in 56 games or more and four of them are Blue Jays (Fluharty, Fisher, Rogers and Varland.) The Yankees are the only other team that has more than one reliever with 56 appearances or more, and they have just two.
It won’t take a 32-5 run like the Red Sox had for the Jays to make the playoffs. But it will likely take at least 82 wins to earn the third wild-card. That would call for the Jays to finish 23-16 in the remaining 39 games. Their best 39-game-span over the course of this season is 22-17. If they are going to make the playoffs, they will need to play their best baseball.
Starting-five key to wild-card chase
Starting pitching will be critical if the Jays are going to continue making a push. And they may have to be creative.
Cease, Jose Soriano, Max Scherzer, and Shane Bieber will all have to take the ball every fifth day and deliver quality and quantity of innings. They will need a fifth starter at least six, maybe seven more times. They hope to get Taillon and/or Yesavage back at some point, but it may be too late. The Jays need their offence to improve and build some margin of error for the pitching staff and Schneider’s use of the bullpen.
Soriano will be extremely important if they’re able to salvage this season. He will also be a key part of the next couple of years. The Jays believe they have a chance to take Soriano’s game to another level and I agree with them. The Jays acquired Soriano from the Angels, who fired their pitching coach, assistant pitching coach and bullpen coach on Tuesday, primarily because they were not using the technology and analytics that were available to them and the players. They were doing things the old school way.
The Jays are an analytically driven organization that uses metrics and data to help pitchers better understand their pitch usage as well as the shapes and movement of what they throw. Soriano’s talent is a beautiful piece of clay that can be molded into a piece of art. There is untapped potential that the Jays can release. It won’t happen all at once. Most likely the real improvement will be seen next year.
About that play the other day...
Just when you think you have seen everything, we find out that a fourth out in an inning is possible. You just have to keep the players on the field after the third out.
In the game on Monday against the Red Sox, a very peculiar play happened. With runners on first and third and one out in the seventh, Jays’ centre fielder Brett Bateman caught a routine fly ball. The baserunners, fielders, umpires and press box were all confused on how many outs there were. The baserunners ran on the fly ball thinking there were two outs when there was only one, despite the scoreboard in Toronto saying two. Bateman caught the ball and lobbed it in, but the Jays ultimately realized there had been only one out and the baserunners never tagged up. So, they threw the ball to Guerrero, who stepped on first for the third out of the inning. The home plate umpire waved off the run at the plate signaling no run since that runner did not tag up.
The umpires then caucused as there was confusion as to what had happened. In the meantime, the Blue Jays players left the field thinking the inning was over. But after 15 minutes and a call to the MLB headquarters, the umpires realized that it was a timing play and since the run scored before the third out was made at first base it would count.
The Jays were upset because once the play became a timing play, they should have had an opportunity to appeal the fact that the runner on third never tagged up. The reason they could not appeal the play was because all the players had left the field. If they had appealed the play, it would have been the fourth out of the inning and would have taken the run off of the board.
Thankfully the run didn’t change the outcome of the game. In addition to the players not knowing how many outs there were, the umpires didn’t understand the rule without a call to the New York headquarters. The Jays didn’t know enough to keep the players on the field. In the end the play was called properly although multiple different steps could have happened that would have allowed the Jays to keep the run off of the board.
This game never ceases to amaze me.
