The Toronto Blue Jays played well enough to earn the 8th-seed in the 2020 MLB Playoffs, but can they continue to defy the odds and make a run at the World Series?
It was just a few months ago that the Blue Jays did not have a home ballpark for the 2020 season due to COVID. Travel restrictions between the USA and Canada proved to be a hurdle that neither side could jump, so the Jays were left hanging.
The Jays struggled early in the season. They were not scoring much and their pitching was inconsistent. A dozen games into the season, they were 5-7.
Then the Jays moved in to a nest in Downtown Buffalo at the corner of Swan and Washington. It was not perfect, but crews did all they could to make the ballpark a home for a few months.
Having one of the youngest rosters of position players in the MLB, many of the Jays players had spent time at Sahlen Field over the past few seasons. Vlad Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio, and Bo Bichette are just a few names that the Bisons faithful had got to see develop within the last 24 months.
Bichette was comfortable right away in Buffalo, but an early hamstring injury looked like it could derail the Jays’ season. However, the Jays went on to win 6-straight the next week over the Orioles, Phillies, and Rays. That began a stretch of 9-straight series that they did not lose.
Big hits over that stretch came from all throughout the lineup, but most notably from Teoscar Hernandez, Randall Grichuk and a Rowdy Tellez bomb off the parking ramp in right field.
The teams’s hitting was much better at Sahlen Field than on the road. The team hit .276 as opposed to .239 on the road. The increase in hits led to an increase in runs as well. The Jays had 12 more RBI’s at home than on the road in eight less games. Almost every player on the team had better batting numbers at home, but the confidence proved dividends in tough road matchups.
The Jays will need to rely on that confidence that saw them finish the year with a 13-10 record in one-run games when taking on the first-place Tampa Bay Rays.
The Rays finished the season with a 40-20 record including winning 6-of-10 versus Toronto.
Tampa leaned on their pitching staff throughout the shortened season. As a team, the Rays finished second in the AL with a 3.56 only trailing the Cleveland Indians. Their hitting was not spectacular as they finished with the 11th best team batting average in the AL, however their team OBP was good enough for 4th.
The Jays will need to limit baserunners and the best way to do that is to avoid walking batters and not making errors in the field. Both have plagued the Jays at different points of the season.
By starting Matt Shoemaker for Game 1, Charlie Montoyo is deploying a relief strategy as Shoemaker is not known for going deep into starts. That plan makes a lot of sense for the Jays as their bullpen has generally been much more consistent than their starters sans Hyun Jin Ryu.
Expect Shoemaker to get through the lineup a maximum of two times before the Jays bring in an arm like Nate Pearson or Robbie Ray. The later innings will then likely be handled by Thomas Hatch, AJ Cole, and Anthony Bass.
Whether the Jays can get through the Rays or not, it has been a very successful step forward for a young squad. The future is bright for the Jays, but it could be realized even sooner than most thought if they can get hot at the right time.