It was feast or famine for the Toronto Blue Jays on their recent road trip that included a record-breaking beatdown of the Colorado Rockies and a series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n
The first-place team is back home for a three-game series with the Chicago Cubs starting Tuesday night at Rogers Centre ahead of a three-game weekend set against the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
Toronto leads the American League standings at 69-50 and has a four-game lead on the Boston Red Sox entering play Monday night.<\/p>\n
Here’s a look at five Blue Jays storylines to watch with about one-quarter of the season remaining:<\/p>\n
Bieber fever<\/p>\n
The resurgence of veteran right-hander Max Scherzer and the emergence of southpaw Eric Lauer have given Toronto’s starting rotation more stability.<\/p>\n
The team’s five-man crew, which also includes Kevin Gausman, Jose Berrios and Chris Bassitt, could soon become a six-man group as Shane Bieber nears a return.<\/p>\n
The 2020 American League Cy Young Award winner, who was acquired from Cleveland at the trade deadline, has impressed in his Triple-A rehab appearances.<\/p>\n
Bieber underwent Tommy John surgery last year. He has a career record of 62-32 with a 3.22 earned-run average over parts of seven big-league seasons.<\/p>\n
Offence clicking<\/p>\n
Toronto leads the major leagues in several offensive categories, thanks in part to back-to-back-to-back routs of the Rockies last week.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays set a modern-era big-league record with a whopping 63 hits over the three games in Colorado. Toronto also set a franchise record with 45 runs scored.<\/p>\n
After dropping two of three games in Los Angeles over the weekend, the Blue Jays still lead the big leagues in hits (1,099), batting average (.269) and on-base percentage (.339). Toronto is also third in on-base-plus slugging percentage (.767).<\/p>\n
Tough decisions<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays will have some tough decisions to make this month as some big-name players get set to return to the lineup.<\/p>\n
Second baseman Andres Gimenez will soon be activated after spending five weeks on the injured list with a left ankle sprain.<\/p>\n
Outfielder\/designated hitter George Springer, who has been out for two weeks due to a concussion, could also soon return.<\/p>\n
Recent call-up Buddy Kennedy is the most likely player to be sent down. A second roster move is expected to be a much tougher call, given it will likely involve a player who sees more regular playing time.<\/p>\n
Arms race<\/p>\n
A couple of hard-throwing right-handers could make their mark at the big-league level for the Blue Jays over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Alek Manoah has impressed in his minor-league starts as he continues to build up after undergoing elbow surgery last year.<\/p>\n
Manoah finished third in Cy Young Award voting in 2022 and is 29-20 with a 3.34 ERA over 75 career starts for the Blue Jays.<\/p>\n
Normally a starter, top pitching prospect Trey Yesavage threw in relief for double-A New Hampshire last week for the first time since being drafted last year in the first round.<\/p>\n
He had nine strikeouts over five innings<\/p>\n
Stretch drive<\/p>\n
A playoff berth appears to be a slam dunk for Canada’s lone big-league baseball team.<\/p>\n
Entering Monday’s games, Toronto has a 98.3-per-cent chance of qualifying for the post-season, per FanGraphs projections.<\/p>\n
The website lists the Blue Jays at 78.1 per cent to win the East Division and at 65.8 per cent to earn a first-round bye to the division series.<\/p>\n
After this homestand, Toronto visits the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins before returning to Rogers Centre to play the Minnesota Twins and MLB-best Milwaukee Brewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was feast or famine for the Toronto Blue Jays on their recent road trip that included a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-61824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}