Jays look to climb above .500 on West Coast trip
OAKLAND — The solo Josh Donaldson home run that led to a series split over the New York Yankees on Sunday provided a little extra jet fuel for the Blue Jays trip to the West Coast.
And starting here in Northern California, one of the hottest teams in the American League is hoping to find a baseball land of opportunity.
The climb back to .500 was almost complete prior to Monday’s opener of a three-game series against the Oakland Athletics, losers of seven of their past 11 games and mired in last place in the AL West.
Following an off day on Thursday, it’s three games at Seattle’s Safeco Field, the stadium otherwise known as Rogers Centre West. By then, the thousands of Jays fans that will drift down from Vancouver may find a team that has already surpassed the break-even mark that has eluded them from opening day when the fell 3-2 to the Orioles in Baltimore.
The standings will show this first series on the six-game road trip is a clash between two last-place teams. The Jays have won 10 of their past 13 and opened Monday’s play just two games out of an AL wildcard spot.
Manager John Gibbons’ team will see opportunity to first reach then climb above .500 on this trip in several different ways — and for documentable good reasons.
Let’s start with Donaldson as he returns to the stadium where he began his major league career and first served notice that he had serious power-hitter potential.
The Jays acquired the Bringer of Rain in 2014 after 24 and 29 homerun seasons with the A’s. He had yet to emerge into stardom at that point, but he was showing enough signs that the Jays were confident enough to deal Canadian Brett Lawrie for him.
(That trade best not be discussed around here, however. Donaldson had an MVP season in 2015 and in his past five games has four home runs, including Sunday’s dramatic game winner. Lawrie? Well, he’s out of baseball and on the weekend was back in Toronto for a promotional appearance to help sell potato chips.)
Donaldson is always keen to perform at the park where he played the first 405 games of his MLB career. The fact that he’s rounding into form after his extended stint on the DL only adds to that anticipation, both for Donaldson and the teammates who feed off of his success and enthusiasm.
Even though it’s generally considered a pitcher-friendly ballpark, if recent form holds, the Jays slugging offence should play well at the Oakland Coliseum. The A’s lead the majors in home-park homers with 49, so you know the ball flies out.
Another order of business will be for starter J.A. Happ, who gets the ball in Monday’s opener, to regain both his form and a notch in the win column. A 20-game winner last season (20-4 with a 3.18 ERA), Happ is 0-3 with a 4.50 so far in 2017 but making his second start after coming off the disabled list due to elbow inflammation.
As the Jays rotation is getting progressively healthier, Happ has the opportunity to show he’s still the Cy Young contender from a year ago and capable of being a key to the Jays starting staff. By this time last June, he had already piled up a 7-4 record on his way to that career season.
The lefty’s return performance against the Cincinnati Reds last week was certainly encouraging. In a no-decision over four innings, Happ felt he worked the kinks out and after the game said he felt stronger than he did when the team exited spring training.
If the Jays manage a series win over the A’s — and they’ll certainly be favoured to do so — then they’ll either be at .500 or above when they head north along the Pacific Coast to face the Mariners on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
And there, they will be greeted by what has become one of the annual highlights of their road schedule.
So opportunity awaits in both Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. And for a surging team that was 11 games under .500 as recently as April 28, it’s the closest they’ve been to getting back to baseball’s version of even par since Jason Grilli allowed an 11th inning home run back on opening day.