Five things to watch as Blue Jays enter middle third of season

As his team was grinding through the first five dates of a six-game road trip that wasn't exactly a treat to be participating in, Blue Jays manager John Schneider suggested a five-game sample size wasn't worthy of analysis.
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And with 30 and change of those segments in a season, he's not wrong.
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'If we're looking at 55 games, yeah for sure,' Schneider said in Texas, suggesting a more realistic time frame to begin your grading.
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So let's make it 56, the point in the sprawling MLB schedule that the Jays arrived at with what felt like an outlier of a 12-0 shellacking of the Athletics at the Rogers Centre on Thursday night.
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As a loose opener for what in many ways is the critical middle third of the season, it was an impressive launching point. That said, after what could best be described as an uneven first 55, Schneider is a realist regarding what needs to happen for his team.
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'You definitely want to put your best foot forward right here for the next month, really and see (where you are),' Schneider said on Thursday, prior to his team moving to 28-28 and hitting the .500 mark for what felt like the umpteenth time this season. 'I know everyone kind of looks at the (trade) deadline as a go or no. You've got to play pretty well right now.'
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In other words, the manager is well aware of the stakes in what sure feels like a critical point of the campaign, even if there a whopping 106 games remaining.
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But the second 55 concludes the day after the July 30 MLB trade deadline so Schneider, and presumably his players, are well aware of what's at stake over the next two months. If the team remains in touch with the post season, it's a 'go' for general manager Ross Atkins to shop. If they drift towards the basement, it's likely a hard 'no' and that means a selloff and major retooling of the core.
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In evaluating the first third, Schneider steadfastly maintains that the offence has potential while acknowledging the flaws.
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'The fact that we're getting guys on is good, and I feel like we're trending in the right direction from a hitting standpoint,' Schneider said. 'But … then there's runners in scoring position, there's damage (hitting for power), there's extra-base hits that we can continue to get better at.'
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That's a mouthful, of course, but even with a blip or two in the bullpen and the ongoing concern regarding depth in the rotation, for this team to become some semblance of consistency it needs to hit and do so in critical situations. To his credit, Schneider wasn't pulling any punches in that regard either, as he spoke before Thursday's breakout, a smashing start to the middle 55 of a season that could still go in multiple directions.
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'The first 55, it's been up and down,' Schneider said acknowledging both the painful and the obvious. 'I think that we can definitely play a little bit better for a consistent period of time. It seems to me that it comes down to (the fact) that performance of the starters, performances with runners in scoring position, base running … has been a little up and down.