The Toronto Blue Jays occupy a unique status in the MLB landscape right now and not one that other teams would admire. Of the teams playing .500 or better, and thus viable playoff hopefuls, Toronto is the only one with zero shot at a division title and reduced to playing for a one-game wild-card shot […]
The American League wild-card race has five teams vying for the final spot in the playoffs. Assuming that the runner-up in the Oakland A’s/LA Angels race for the AL West title will be in the wild-card game, that leaves five more teams within five games of each other for the last spot. Those teams are, in order of the current standings, the Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians. Here’s nine thoughts on that race as it heads into the homestretch…
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.
The Toronto Blue Jays have endured a mostly rough first half of the season after a series of high-profile acquisitions in the offseason made them the favorite to win the AL East. Injuries and underperformance followed, and the Blue Jays spent the bulk of the first half running away with the division, but in the opposite direction.
After three weeks of play, both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays are, at the very least, having to play with some urgency. While the Red Sox, Yankees and Orioles are all off to good starts, the Jays & Rays are struggling. In today’s American League MLB coverage, TheSportsNotebook will examine why.
One of these AL East teams was aggressive in the offseason, made a big splash and is getting a lot of attention as the candidate to displace the New York Yankees atop the American League East. The other team is coming off a bad year, one of the biggest salary dumps in history and is laying relatively low. Normally you’d have no trouble identifying which of these teams is the Toronto Blue Jays and which is the Boston Red Sox. But this year, the Jays & Sox have reversed roles—Toronto even traded Boston their manager for good measure. TheSportsNotebook’s MLB coverage previews both teams and measures their chances against the projected win total Las Vegas has posted for each.