Las Vegas believes, having made the Jays the (-150) favorites to win their division and placing them at 6-1 to win the World Series, even with St. Louis and just narrowly behind 9-2 favorite Kansas City. I dove deeper into the Blue Jay numbers thinking I might find some cracks beneath the glittering façade. Instead, it’s impossible not to be impressed with just how complete this team is.
The Toronto Blue Jays bullpen is the biggest question mark this team faces as they’ve sprinted out to a three-game lead in the AL East in this final month of May. Toronto is atop the American League in runs scored and their starting pitching ranks fifth in the league. But the bullpen ERA is at the bottom of the AL.
TheSportsNotebook’s MLB spring training previews have included separate articles on the ten teams in the American League who either made the postseason in 2013, were right in the race to the end or at least should have been the race to the end. That leaves five darkhorses left on the board.
Is there any hope left for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox in the American League wild-card race? The two AL East teams were on the fringes of contention when the week began, hanging 5 and 4.5 games out respectively. But each has missed significant opportunities to capitalize. The Jays were swept by Tampa Bay when the last three games gave Toronto a chance to gain ground on one of the five teams that are packed within a game or so of the two wild-card spots in the American League playoffs. Boston wrapped up a 10-game homestand by losing two of three to Texas and finishing 4-6 for the sequence of games that was supposed to kickstart an August push. Both teams began 2012 with October expectations. TheSportsNotebook examines what went wrong and whether we should indeed stick a fork in both teams…
The 2011 season definitely had its fair share of drama and heroic endings, but 2012 has a completely different outlook. We had our fair share of players contributing to the storyline but 2012 will have a new crop of people leading their teams to the coveted Series. Here is the list of five players that look to finally have that breakout season or get back on track after seasons of diminished expectations.