BUCKLE UP FOR NERVOUS RIDE DOWN THE STRETCH

Young Blue Jays give fans plenty to love, plenty to worry about in drive to playoffs

The usual playful smiles were mostly missing on a Wednesday afternoon in that gloomy place the Tampa Bay Rays call home.

The silly home run jacket remained on its hanger, waiting to be used. Just not on this rather miserable day of baseball.

The next time the usually happy Toronto Blue Jays play in St. Petersburg, if they do play again in the Tampa area this season, they'll be here for Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series. And that's assuming a lot over the final 10 games of this season, and with an 11th game possibly on tap to determine a wild card winner.

This is the beginning of the home stretch for the Jays and there's no time to fall apart now. This was the first series the Jays had lost in their last eight. Their record in September is a rather special 16-5. This series with the Rays, like so many series with the unexplainable Rays, didn't look good for Toronto.

It didn't look good for a team in need of every win it can find in this race with the Red Sox and the Yankees. Two of the three teams will likely go to the playoffs. One will advance to the real post-season.

There's a .333 chance of doing something impressive.

Just not in Tampa. The Jays needed more brilliance from Robbie Ray in Tampa and didn't get it in Game 1 of the series, the first time Ray has looked human in a long time. The Jays lost the game and lost their card of scouting secrets along with the defeat.

In the second game, giant rookie Alek Manoah couldn't throw strikes, couldn't find his usual delivery. Somehow, Toronto found a way to win despite pitchers walking 11 batters.

And then, in the normal place that Hyun-jin Ryu pitches, when he is supposedly hurt and lately not getting people out, the Jays went the opener route on Wednesday and got routed 7-1 — mostly in one inning — by the Rays, who were doing the same thing.

The race tightens just a little more with 10 games to go for Toronto, nine left for both Boston and New York.

The best part of the next few days will happen on the final three games the Jays play in Minnesota. On each of those days, either the Yankees or the Red Sox will lose. They're playing each other.

If the Jays take care of business — and oddly, this team has a better record against winning teams than it does against losing teams — then they at least control their own destiny.

They play four games against the Twins, then three against the Yankees at Rogers Centre, then finish the season with three against the Baltimore Orioles, the worst team in the American League. The opportunity is there. The schedule is their friend.

And know this much in late September: No team wants to play the Blue Jays in the playoffs. No one wants to pitch to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Marcus Semien or Bo Bichette or Teoscar Hernandez or the red-hot Lourdes Gurriel Jr. when it matters. No one wants to face Cy Young candidate Ray or Jose Berrios or big Manoah in a short series.

But first, they have to get there. They have to win their final three series. That would be at least seven more wins, 92 or more for the season. That would get them into the wild card game.

And just like no one wanted to play the 2015 Blue Jays in the post-season until the Kansas City Royals figured them out, no one wants to match up against these Jays.

As different as those Toronto teams may be, this team so young and inexperienced, that team older and maybe hungrier, the statistical comparison of the two groups is somewhat startling.

The 2015 team was first in the AL in runs scored, sixth in hits, first in home runs, first in total bases, second in batting average, first in OPS.

Manager Charlie Montoyo's team is third in runs, second in hits, first in homers, first in total bases, second in average, first in OPS.

The 2015 slugging Jays had a team OPS of .797. The slugging Jays of this season have a team OPS of .795.

Pitching wise, the Jays were fifth in earned run average in 2015, ranked fifth in ERA heading into Wednesday's game.

This Jays team leads all of baseball in smiling and laughter and goofiness and dugout pranks and different kinds of handshakes. They might have a Cy Young winner. They have two MVP contenders.

There's much to love about this Blue Jays team with 10 games to go, and much to be nervous yet hopeful about.