Upgrades paid off handsomely as Jays crowned division champs
BALTIMORE— With just three outs to go in the Blue Jays’ 15-2 blowout over the Baltimore Orioles, Jays fans behind the team’s dugout — who made up most of the crowd in a nearlyempty Camden Yards — started an unprecedented cheer: “Thank you, Alex!” clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.
They were serenading general manager Alex Anthopoulos who, of course, traded for MVP front-runner Josh Donaldson in the off-season and pulled off a series of transformative deals at this year’s deadline that paved the way for the finest second half in franchise history and the first division title in 22 years.
“It’s a little odd,” Anthopoulos said afterward. “You’re not a player, you certainly don’t expect that. But (the fans’) support has been great. I can’t say enough about that.”
Anthopoulos was nearly indistinguishable from the players after Wednesday’s division-clinching victory, donning ski goggles and shivering through a beer shower from assistant GM Tony LaCava.
Wednesday’s win in the front half of a double-header marked just the fifth time in franchise history the Jays have reached the 92-win mark, which is particularly remarkable when you consider their record was 50-50 through their first 100 games. They have won nearly three-quarters of their games since.
While adding an ace in David Price, a power-hitting shortstop in Troy Tulowitzki, a speedy leadoff hitter in Ben Revere and upgrading the bullpen no doubt turned the Jays into World Series contenders, Anthopoulos said he knew his club was better than their first half record suggested.
“We felt we were a good team the entire time. Sure we had some areas that we had to get addressed, but the wins and losses at the trade deadline, we felt we should have been much stronger than that at the time and that was going to turn.”
Given how the team led the league in scoring by a wide margin and sat second overall in run-differential, Anthopoulos had good reason to believe his team had underachieved. Plus, with the number of games they had left against the first-place Yankees, there would be an opportunity to make up ground. So he traded a dozen prospects over the course of a few days and hoped the deals would pan out. The Jays were eight games back of first on July 28, when they acquired Tulowitzki. Two weeks later they were in first and haven’t looked back since.
“It was pretty obvious,” manager John Gibbons said. “We liked our team, but we weren’t getting a lot of traction up to that point. Alex pulled off a couple big deals and it took off.”
While the Jays once again flexed their offensive muscle in Wednesday’s opening game, they also took advantage of an Orioles team that looked like they had checked out. Baltimore made four errors in the first game, including two on one play in the fifth that led to four unearned runs.
They got some revenge in the night cap, though, bullying a team of Jays’ backups and low-leverage relievers to win 8-1.
In the first game, Jays shortstop Ryan Goins, who has dramatically improved his offensive production in the second half of the season, had five hits, setting a new career high; while Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista and Justin Smoak hit their 37th, 40th and 18th homers of the season, respectively.
Encarnacion’s and Bautista’s homers, both coming with the game already out of reach, were insignificant to Wednesday’s game. But with Encarnacion’s blast the Jays became only the fourth team in baseball his- tory to have three players with 37 or more homers in a season, while Bautista joins Donaldson as the first teammates with 40 homers apiece since 2006 — two more statistical testaments to otherworldly offence.
Meanwhile, Marcus Stroman’s storybook season continued Wednesday, as he allowed just one run — a solo homer in the seventh inning — over eight innings in his fourth start of the season since his unexpected return from ACL surgery. The homer snapped a stretch of 15 scoreless innings for the right-hander, who has allowed just four extra-base hits over his four starts.
“It still feels like a dream, to be honest with you,” he said.
Despite locking up the division, the Jays are still playing for top spot in the American League, which would secure home-field advantage throughout the post-season. Leading the league also means playing the winner of the wild-card game, who will have burned their best pitcher in the win-or-go-home playoff.