It’s no secret that the American League East is one of the hardest divisions in baseball. All five teams can and are still in contention for a playoff spot. Whether it’s the Tampa Bay Rays with all their knowledge around developing players or the Baltimore Orioles with Adley Rutschman and all the rest of their young stars, or the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees, who both have good starting pitching and pretty good bullpens. You could even talk about how good some of the Boston Red Sox players have as they continue to remain in contention.
But if one of the key parts of your team isn’t clicking, especially in this division, a team that is supposed to be at the top can find themselves playing catch up. In this case, I am talking about the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays have had one of the best offenses in the MLB for the past three seasons. Led by stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, Toronto’s lineup is not one a pitcher looks forward to facing.
Although their bats are talented, the inconsistency from game to game has kept the Blue Jays quiet when it comes to getting deep into the playoffs. Of course, you could go back to 2021 when they didn’t find their stride until the second half and came up one game short. But for this article, I am talking about this season.
Toronto Blue Jays going through another inconsistent season at the plate
Sitting in third place in the AL East, the Birds in Blue are once again playing catch-up. This is due to another first half where they could not score runs at a consistent rate. An example of this is when they scored 20 runs down at the Trop earlier this season. During the stretch of games leading up to this game, they couldn’t buy a run. The struggles then continued after.
A 20-run showing only counts for one win and, in a period of time where you are only winning once or twice a week, it can feel annoying because you wish you could save some for upcoming games. That’s baseball and for a young team, it can sometimes seem impossible. But that is where it gets confusing with the Jays because, in my opinion, they have done a good job of adding a veteran presence.
With that, there comes a lot of questions about whose fault it is. I am not here to answer that because I do not know what is going on inside the organization. What I can say, based on recent history, is that things will get better on the offensive front. Hopefully, that is the case with the Jays because It would be great to see them at the top again as someone who follows the team a lot.