STREAKING JAYS SHOULD TERRIFY CONTENDERS
Lineup full of sluggers and much improved pitching staff adds up to a fearsome package
The Toronto Blue Jays are the American League's hottest team, winners of eight straight and 11 of their last 12 games entering Friday night's action, reversing a mid-August slump that almost torpedoed their playoff hopes.
With three weeks and 23 games left on the schedule, there is still plenty of time for the Blue Jays to qualify for the playoffs, especially now that they've pulled even with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in the loss column. And if they do reach the post-season, every other team should be terrified to face them.
Toronto leads the majors in home runs (217) and slugging percentage (.458), plus it has the fourth-highest on-base percentage (.329). The Blue Jays share the league lead in hard-hit rate — 42 per cent of balls in play are hit 95 m.p.h. or harder — with the Yankees and Red Sox, but no one gets a higher rate of hits on the sweet spot of the bat, known as barrels, than the Jays. Toronto's pitching staff also has a combined 3.83 ERA, the 10th best in baseball this season, with the eighth-highest strikeout rate (25 per cent). Put it all together and that's a fearsome package for the post-season. And on an individual basis, it's equally impressive.
You can't talk about the Blue Jays without first mentioning their slugger, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. The 22-year-old star is batting .321 with the major-league lead in runs (105), hits (162), total bases (305) and OPS (1.014). He hit his 40th home run of the season Monday during an 8-0 rout of the Yankees, making him the youngest Blue Jays hitter to reach 40 homers and one of just 10 in franchise history to reach the mark. Guerrero brought his hall of fame dad into a more exclusive club, joining Cecil and Prince Fielder as the only fatherson duos to hit 40 home runs in a single season.
Second baseman Marcus Semien is also having a productive year. The nine-year veteran has 37 home runs, a career high, in 136 games, positioning himself to be only the fifth second baseman in MLB history to reach the 40-home run plateau. He's also been the best defensive second baseman in the majors per FanGraphs Ultimate Zone Rating, a metric that puts a run value to defence, attempting to quantify how many runs a player saved or gave up due to their fielding. Shortstop Bo Bichette is batting .291 with 21 homers and trails only three players — Guerrero, Trae Turner and Cedric Mullins — in hits.
Not only that, Guerrero, Semien and Bichette are the top three run scorers in the American League and could become the first set of teammates to finish in the top three in this category since Larry Doby, Bobby Avila and Al Rosen did it for the Cleveland Indians in 1952, per the Elias Sports Bureau.
With teammates like that, it's understandable outfielder Teoscar Hernandez is flying under the radar. Yet the 28-year-old is batting .292 with 25 home runs and 93 RBIs, giving him a chance to earn a second consecutive Silver Slugger trophy.
Toronto's pitching isn't short on talent, either. Robbie Ray is an ace and the front-runner for the American League's Cy Young Award. Ray was named the AL pitcher of the month in August after posting a 1.88 ERA with 52 strikeouts and eight walks in 41 innings across six starts. Overall this season, Ray has 212 strikeouts in 166 innings with a 2.60 ERA. No AL pitcher has a lower ERA and only Gerrit Cole has more strikeouts (215) in the majors this season. He's also the first pitcher in franchise history with four straight double-digit strikeout starts.
Other starters in the rotation include Hyun Jin Ryu, Steven Matz and Alek Manoah. Ryu is 13-8 with a 3.77 ERA and is using his curveball to perfection, making batters miss more than a third of the time against the pitch (36 per cent). Matz posted the lowest ERA (1.30) of any pitcher throwing at least 20 innings in the month of August. Manoah, 5-2 with a 3.63 ERA, has struck out 88 batters in 791/3 innings, putting him in the conversation for rookie of the year. Reliever Jordan Romano shouldn't be forgotten. He's held opposing batters to a .157 average using his fastball. Since the all-star break, no starting pitching rotation has a better collective ERA from their pitchers than Toronto does.
The schedule also works in Toronto's favour in its push for the playoffs. The Blue Jays are coming off a four-game sweep against the New York Yankees, the team directly in front of them in the wild card standings. Toronto's remaining opponents have a combined .470 win percentage. The Yankees' remaining schedule meanwhile is more difficult, with an average win rate of .489 for their upcoming opponents.
Heading into Friday's games, Toronto had a 56 per cent chance to reach the post-season, but that could continue to improve in the coming days (it was less than 10 per cent at the end of August).