RAIN CHECK FOR JAYS
Toronto rained out but closer to clinching AL East with New York loss
BALTIMORE — Thanks to Tuesday’s game being rained out and the Red Sox hammer job on the Yankees in the Bronx, the Blue Jays clinched at least a tie for the AL East pennant last night and will face an interesting scenario Wednesday.
A doubleheader is scheduled against the Orioles with the first game set for 1:05 p.m. and if the Jays win that one they will clinch the American League East Division and then a half-hour later go back on to the field and play the nightcap in a nothing game. They can also clinch if the Yankees lose, even if the Jays lose both games. Nothing in terms of the division but quite relevant in their drive for the best record in the American League. The Jays are now 1.5 games ahead of the Kansas City Royals after the White Sox beat them 4-2 Tuesday night.
The likely game plan would be a muted celebration if they beat Baltimore and clinch the East in Game One followed by a full blown party at the conclusion of Game Two.
Marcus Stroman, who is undefeated in three starts, gets to pitch in the opener against Miguel Gonzalez. If Stroman and the Jays can’t get it done, the torch then passes to R.A. Dickey in the nightcap.
In many respects it would be fitting if Dickey got to go for the clinch given his advanced years — 40 — and the fact he has been campaigning as a pro since 1997.
Dickey is as thrilled as the rest of his teammates to be in the position they find themselves and the climb up the mountain in the second half has been everything he expected a pennant run to be.
“I think it superseded my expectations really,” Dickey said. “I mean that because it happened not unexpectedly but in a way that was fairly demonstrative. We traded for (Troy) Tulowitzki, we traded for Price, we’re sitting at 50-51 and you think that you want to win the division but at that point you’re really concerned about getting in the playoffs any way we can.
“So we make those trades then the way that it transpired after that was such an organic, pleasant, really fun experience.”
In baseball more than any other sport analytics has taken root and blossomed. However, by acquiring the players they did at the trade deadline, the result was an uplift in performance from just about all of the remaining players.
“You started to see our pitching start to come around a little bit in June and July. You started seeing flashes of (Ryan) Goins being pretty good. You had like the perfect storm,” said Dickey.
“You had guys who were starting to get back — Eddie (Encarnacion) started to hit like he has always hit. J.D. (Josh Donaldson) was doing his MVP thing in a way that was pretty sensational and still is. I don’t know if you expected that from him. But you had like this perfect storm of things that were occurring where really all you can do ... it’s like strapping on to a rocket and you’re just hanging on and you’re looking around and admiring all this stuff that you’re seeing along the way. It’s been pretty neat. As far as quantifying things I don’t think any analytics guy could have told you based on past performance that Ryan Goins was going to be doing what he’s doing or the Smoak-Colabello platoon at first base was going to be what it has or that Marco Estrada was going to turn in the year that he’s had. ”