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If the Blue Jays are going to turn it around, they have to start right now
Friday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at the Blue Jays vs. history, Jose Reyes’ double life, and the AL Central’s key players.
John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
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The Blue Jays are 1-8 and already 5.5 games back in the AL East despite not even playing their 10th game of the season yet. For almost everything good, bad, and in between in baseball, you can say, “well, it’s just April,” but there are exceptions to that, and the Jays are right up against one of those exceptions. Three teams have begun their seasons 1-7 and still ended up making it to the postseason: the 1974 Pirates, the 1995 Reds, and the 2011 Rays.
All three of those teams went 2-8 during their first 10 games and made it to the playoffs anyway, despite two of them even finishing April under .500. Toronto, at 1-8, has three more games against the division-rival Orioles this weekend, and if they lose this series (and the next one, a three-game set against the Red Sox), 2017 could very well be a long season no matter how well they play afterward.
Each of those three teams who erased their horrific start had to go to extreme lengths to do so. The Pirates went 20-8 in August, and managed to win their division and earn an NLCS berth despite winning just 88 games on the season: the Blue Jays won a Wild Card spot last year with 89 wins. The Rays almost immediately rebounded with a 14-5 stretch to finish off their April, but it still took the Red Sox having one of the worst months in the history of baseball in September to help the Rays sneak into October — and the only reason even that worked out is because the Red Sox had gone 11-15 in April themselves before crushing the league for four months.
The Reds might have started out 1-7, but they went 20-6 in May and then rattled off winning percentages over .600 for the next three months. These are the kinds of performances (and luck) the Jays will have to have the rest of 2017: It’s certainly possible, but if they don’t start the turnaround basically immediately, they might very well end up being a real good team playing for 2018 before anyone else.
- These five AL Central players will determine the fate of their teams in 2017. And in some cases, beyond 2017 as well.
- Yoenis Cespedes is really feeling it right now, as he followed up his three-homer performance from earlier in the week with a two-homer Thursday against the Marlins.
- Don’t worry, everyone: The cat that was in the Marlins’ home run sculpture has been adopted by a Marlins’ employee.
- While we’re on the topic of growing families, it turns out Jose Reyes has a secret second one. This guy, man.
- With Jackie Robinson Day on Saturday, here’s your reminder that it isn’t a celebration of when everything was fixed forever: There is still work to be done, in baseball and in life.
- Here are three things we’ve learned from the Yankees’ season so far.
- X-rays were negative on Jason Kipnis’ hand following a hit by pitch.
- Mike Trout played catch with a fan in the stands, but whether he talked about the weather with them is unknown.
- The new home of the Braves, SunTrust Park, opens Friday. Here’s where to eat at the stadium, courtesy of Eater.
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