For the second straight season, Buffalo has hosted the Toronto Blue Jays and their bats have been on fire. In 2020, the Jays hit .276 as a team at Sahlen Field and have improved that to .279 in 2021. Now the Blue Jays will feature three starters in next week’s All-Star game which is the most from any MLB team. The main reason for this has been how adept the team has been at the plate.
Fans and experts across the MLB landscape all figured that free agent addition George Springer would assume the lead off spot for Toronto and provide a huge spark for the lineup. Springer, however, has spent most of the season on the IL (but has shown great power in his 15 games).
Another free agent addition has instead been the main catalyst to the surging Jays offense. Veteran Marcus Semien, who will be an All-Star starter, signed with the Jays after not generating a ton of opportunities as a free agent. With Springer injured, Semien took over the leadoff position and has put on a hitting clinic ever since.
The 30-year-old second baseman has slugged 21 home runs while posting a .286/.349/.891 slash line. Those numbers have Semien atop the list of the highest WAR amongst positional players. Currently, Semien is on pace to set career-highs in home runs with 42 and RBI with 108 which would surpass his 2019 5th-place MVP numbers.
Behind Semien in the lineup is another All-Star. Bo Bichette did not earn starting honors, but will still make the trip to Denver, Colorado to represent the Blue Jays.
Bichette leads the league in runs with Semien not far behind him as both guys get on base at a very high rate, then superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. brings them around. If he fails, that’s fine because next up is the third All-Star starter Teoscar Hernandez.
Guerrero Jr. would be having a run away MVP season if it weren’t for the Babe Ruth-esque antics from Shohei Ohtani. At the midway point of the season, Vladdy leads the AL in RBI and is second in both batting average and home runs. If the 22-year-old could win the Triple Crown it would be the youngest a batter has ever reached the accomplishment. It would be another feather in Vladdy’s cap as he was the youngest ever player to lead the league in All-Star voting.
All four players feel right at home batting at Sahlen Field. The four of them have 47-of-94 of the Blue Jays’ RBI at Sahlen Field while the group has 89 hits across 285 at-bats, which is good enough for a .312 batting average in Buffalo. The league average sits at just .239 while the Jays are second-overall as a team at .265 and score the second-most runs at 5.16 per game. This is all being done with the youngest average batter age in the MLB.
Oh yeah, did I mention that George Springer has been added back into the mix. Plus, Randal Grichuk is on pace to break 100 RBI for the first time in his career.
This year’s performance is also a complete 180 from what the team was doing in its last full season in Toronto. In fact, the Blue Jays finished last in the entire league in 2019 with just a .236 batting average and 23rd with 4.48 runs scored per game. Almost all teams hit better while at home, but the Jays were even worse in Rogers Centre where they were only able to amass a .230 batting average.
With how well the team is hitting, you have to think that should potentially sway the team from pressing too hard to get back to Toronto. News however has hinted at the opposite as it seems the team will be applying to return to Rogers Center to host their July 30th series.
As of now, the Blue Jays have announced that they will remain at Sahlen Field at least through July 21st and they have mentioned that it would took weeks to pack everything up and move back to Toronto. So them pushing for the 30th feels like a stretch, but with Canada’s restrictions slowly being lifted, they could very well be welcoming the Jays home in August.
Is it worth potentially cooling off your bats while in the middle of a heated AL East and Wild Card Race?
That’s something the Blue Jays front office will strongly need to consider as the numbers in 2021 have just rolled over from the output in 2020. There’s just something about Sahlen Field that the Jays’ batters love and that should not be overlooked in this whole thing.
Let’s hope whatever the decision is will not harm the Blue Jays’ chances to make a run because their offense is special. The Jays might be just a part or two away from being a true World Series contender and these seasons from Guerrero Jr. and Semien should not be thrown away just because the team wants to move again mid-season. Hopefully everything works out for the best, but it cannot be argued that the Blue Jays love batting in Buffalo.
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