Bo Bichette of the Toronto Blue jays singles in the first inning of Sunday’s game against the Detroit Tigers on Sunday in Detroit.Jose Juarez/The Associated Press
The Blue Jays ended their four-game series against the Tigers in Detroit on Sunday.
Going in, the Tigers were most people’s best team in baseball. Coming out of it, Toronto’s pulled a Freaky Friday on them.
The Jays beat Detroit every way a baseball team can be beat – they outslugged them, out pitched them, ran away on them, came back on them. It was like watching a bouncer slap around an overserved customer.
On Sunday, just to remind you that if you prick them, they will bleed, the Jays got blown out. It didn’t change the story. The Jays are now the best team in baseball by record, if not yet by reputation.
How did this switcheroo happen? I’m pretty sure no one, including the people who put the team together, knows.
With opportunity knocking for the Blue Jays, will Rogers swing for the fences?
The Jays offence is fine. Totally adequate. They’ve scored the seventh most runs in baseball.
Their best hitter is Alejandro Kirk, a guy Toronto spent years trying to replace with someone who looks more like an all-star. It’s not like Kirk is having a season they’ll sing about on Front Street a century from now. He’s being excellent in an average way (and is now out injured after getting hit in the head).
On aggregate, the pitching is also decent. Not great. There are no Sandy Koufaxes in this group. Kevin Gausman might be having the best year of anyone on the staff, and his ERA is pushing four.
The Jays managed to sign one big free agent last year – Anthony Santander. They had to beg him to take the money, and he only agreed because no one else was offering. He was so terrible that when he got injured, the team got better.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. runs to third base after a double by Bo Bichette during the fourth inning of the Toronto Blue Jays’ game against the Detroit Tigers, Saturday, in Detroit.Jose Juarez/The Associated Press
They signed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to the biggest deal in Canadian sports history, and while he’s been good, he hasn’t been biggest-deal-ever good.
You look at the individual numbers, the team’s run differential and the standings and one of these things is not like the other. The Jays have become the Cris Carter of baseball teams. All they do is catch wins.
People’s go-to explanation for this phenomenon is that the little people are overperforming. Addison Barger, Ernie Clement, Tyler Heineman, Eric Lauer, Brendon Little, et al. You’ve heard of Murderers’ Row? The 2025 Blue Jays are Misdemeanours’ Row.
It’s a great story, but baseball operates on the assumption that the opposite thing will happen. Mixing together a bunch of low-cost nobodies and shaking for four months is not supposed to equal 63-43.
There’s a reason the typical major leaguer doesn’t debut in the bigs until many years after he’s drafted. Because that’s how long it takes to figure out who he is. Once he’s been put into a tranche – star, journeyman, specialist, just barely hanging on – he doesn’t move around.
This year’s Jays are defying that rule en masse.
It’s one thing for an underdog to win in the playoffs. Weird things happen over the course of a dozen or so games. But it’s not supposed to be happen over the course of a hundred games, a total the Jays just recently passed.
Credit where it’s due – after 10 years of saying the good ol’ days were just up ahead, Jays’ management has finally arrived at its destination. Watching this team no longer feels like poking yourself in the eye for two-and-a-half hours.
But given how far and fast they ran from the blame before, one is not inclined to give them the credit now. They must be as surprised as anyone else at how it’s turning out. It’s not a miracle, but it’s in the same postal code as one.
Blue Jays starting pitcher Max Scherzer throws in the first inning against the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.Jose Juarez/The Associated Press
Once again, we are reminded that William Goldman’s rule of Hollywood – ‘Nobody knows anything’ – applies in every other business as well. Everyone’s faking it. This year’s Jays just happen to be faking it to the top.
Will it last? A month ago, most people would probably have said, ‘Probably not’. Now you’d have to say ‘maybe’. Based on recent history, the Jays could play .500 ball from this point on and win the division. That seems doable.
Regardless of where it ends up, one thing has already changed. For what now seems like forever, the Jays couldn’t decide at what stage of the competitive process they were in. Were they in the building phase? In the midst of decline? Levitating in mid-air and kicking their legs?
They’re in the window now. They’re so in it, they’re straddling it. Nobody’s ever going to want to hear one of their ‘learned a lot this year’ speeches again.
In sport, there is nothing more dangerous than creating an expectation. Over the last few weeks, the Blue Jays have done more than make Michael Kay and the Yankees look silly. They’ve alerted all of baseball to their new status as favourite.
For the next two months, they’re every other team’s measuring stick. If you can beat up on these guys, you’re a contender. There’s no room for the usual torpor of August baseball.
If the Jays lose a few in a row, everyone will jump on them two-footed. Should’ve made a trade, or shouldn’t have made a trade, or should’ve gotten more depth or why didn’t you plan for this in the 2017 draft?
If they keep winning, the bandwagon will turn into a clown car. Every moustachioed hipster within 500 kilometres of the Rogers Centre will be wearing his Garth Iorg jersey to work. Toronto has a way of suffocating its teams with love, especially if they haven’t won in a while, or are a constant disappointment.
It’s going to be 2015 all over again, but edgier. This time, the hope is mixed with a soupçon of resentment. However it ends up, the Jays have finally hit the bar they have failed to reach for a decade. Once again, they are interesting.