The flustered Toronto Blue Jays continue their free-fall in the standings after losing another series to the Tampa Bay Rays at the Rogers Centre. A pathetic two hits is all that the lineup provided in the team’s discouraging 8-1 rubber-game loss. It’s a good thing there are no more games left with the Rays, who have actually looked like an average club versus Toronto (11-8 record this season).
Josh Donaldson was even benched the first two games since manager John Gibbons believes he is ‘banged up.’ Though the Jays’ offense has stalled with or without the two-time most valuable player in the lineup, especially against Tampa. Their team slash was .209/.296/.374 with a colossal 153 strikeouts in only 17 games with the Rays entering their despicable effort on Wednesday afternoon at home.
It’s been quite a fun time for the Rays to hit against the Blue Jays, being that their squad slashing was a boosted .269/.322/.426 with 26 homers (tied for the most of any team versus Toronto) and 42 walks in the 17 games against the Jays in 2016 going into the final game. The drop-off is huge since Tampa’s team regular season slashing is a dull .244/.309/.429 with 1,295 total strikeouts (fourth most in the majors). The Blue Jays’ team earned-run average versus the Rays is sensibly 4.74 (fourth-highest of any team) and a spiked 1.36 walks-hits per innings percentage.
Alexei picked a good spot for his first homer as a Ray. #RaysUp pic.twitter.com/LuWq55ZDbf
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) September 14, 2016
The Baltimore Orioles now lead Toronto for the first wild-card position as the plugging Detroit Tigers now only sit one game behind the Blue Jays for the second wild-card spot. The trending New York Yankees are still just two games out of that last playoff spot and with the Seattle Mariners riding a seven-game win-streak and now perched just 1 1/2 games back, the Blue Jays need to find the gas pedal soon as we move into the middle of the month. They must overcome two obstacles to do so.
Because ten of the final sixteen games are on the road, the final stretch may be tough for the Jays whose away record is a plain 37-35. They are also just 34-33 against the division this season. Two games above .500 may not cut it for a playoff berth during this competitive season, as the Blue Jays have 11 division matches on the slate remaining. Ten of them will be with either the Yankees, Red Sox, or Orioles in this year’s compact postseason race.
Dominick Depole is the Toronto Blue Jays Writer at Outside Pitch MLB.
Follow him on Twitter, or contact him via e-mail at Dominickdepole@gmail.com.
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