4 days ago
What happens over next 12 games will reveal more about wildly inconsistent Blue Jays
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How crazy? Let's go from one Monday to the next for the ultimate snapshot of insanity around a team so wildly inconsistent that there never truly is a dull moment.
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A week ago, it was doom and gloom after getting swept over three games in Tampa, a performance that was about to get almost worse as part of a six-game trip in which the Jays would score a meagre total of six combined runs.
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This week, on a much-welcomed off day, the Jays now are riding a five-game winning streak — the longest meaningful one since late in the 2023 season. (They had a five-gamer last August, but by then had sold off at the trade deadline and were well on their way to the AL East basement).
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Not only that, and most impressively, in a four-game brooming of the woeful Athletics over the weekend, the Jays scored a whopping 49 runs, wowing and rejuvenating large Rogers Centre crowds.
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Somewhere in the middle of those two dramatic, small-sample size extremes lies the truth of what this team is, of course. But for the first time all season, the positivity around a Jays team looking to reveal a new identity feels real.
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What matters is what happens next, of course, and that begins with a real test against the visiting Phillies, who are in town for a three-game series at the Rogers Centre starting on Tuesday.
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Who knows what is sustainable with this team, one which repeatedly fluctuates from three games below .500 to three games above, but the last week accomplished a number of things.
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Besides that winning streak — and a victory on Tuesday would extend it to six, which hasn't happened for the Jays since late April of 2023 — the Jays have set themselves up to erase the price paid for their inconsistencies earlier in the season.
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Heading into play Monday, the Jays were just a half game out of a wild-card spot. A week ago, they were fourth in the AL East and now sit second, suddenly (surprisingly?) just 5.5 games behind the Yankees for the division lead.
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That's what an explosion of offence will do for a team that suddenly has a run differential that is down to minus-5, the lowest it has been since early in the season. Again, thank the awful A's for the bump, but the Jays seized upon the opportunity of pounding on a weakling for a run that, if this season ends in success, will be seen as the launching point.
