A Wild, Drama-Packed Finish Is in the Cards for the MLB Playoff Picture

NEW YORK — One week ago, the Toronto Blue Jays hit rock bottom after a demoralizing sweep at home against the Texas Rangers, who outscored the Blue Jays 35-9 over four games and knocked them out of the playoff picture. 

Toronto’s deficit in the American League wild-card standings at that point — 2½ games behind Texas for the second spot and 1½ behind Seattle for the third and final berth — was essentially another game larger because both of those AL West teams held the tiebreaker over the Blue Jays. 

The morning after that series, the Blue Jays had roughly a 33% chance to make the postseason, according to FanGraphs, and those odds seemed misleading given their performance against Texas. The most exciting core of Blue Jays players in decades — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, George Springer and company — seemed poised to miss the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.

What happened next is a testament to Toronto’s resiliency and the chaotic state of the AL postseason race. 

The Blue Jays rattled off five straight wins — three at home over the last-place Red Sox, who were fresh off firing of general manager Chaim Bloom, followed by two against the Yankees in the Bronx — before finally losing again Thursday night.

Meanwhile, the Rangers and Mariners had both been swept in their weekend series. Texas then took two of three from Boston while Seattle swept Oakland.

Seven days after the nadir of their season, the Blue Jays had regained control in the wild-card race. And despite losing Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, the Blue Jays woke up Friday morning with their playoff odds sitting at 77%.

“It's been night and day, demeanor-wise, clubhouse energy,” righthander Kevin Gausman said Wednesday night after throwing six scoreless innings. “We had a really bad four days, and you could really feel that. And then to have three really good days in a row after that was huge.”

Entering this weekend’s road series against the playoff-bound Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto has a half-game lead over the Rangers and Mariners for the second wild-card berth. Texas and Seattle play each other seven more times before the end of the season, so one is going to have at least four more losses. 

That means if the Blue Jays win six of their final nine — they have two series against the Rays and one more against the Yankees — they’ll be in the playoffs.

Making things even more interesting, Texas and Seattle are only a half-game behind the Astros in the AL West. Houston hosts the 102-loss Royals this weekend before heading to Seattle for a three-game set and finishing with three in Arizona against the upstart Diamondbacks, who are trying to hang on to their own wild-card position in the National League. Notably, the Blue Jays own the tiebreaker over the Astros.

“What we did against those teams that we’re chasing or that are chasing us, we have no say in them anymore,” Gausman said. “But we still control our own destiny, in the sense that if we just keep winning games, we’re going to be in.”

Easier said than done, of course.

The Blue Jays understand what it means to be in the thick of a wild-card race this late in the season. They were in a similar spot in 2021 — the final year before MLB expanded the postseason field to include three wild-card teams in each league — and just missed making the playoffs. Last year, Toronto won five of their final six games to secure the first wild-card berth.

In 2021 and 2022, Toronto featured one of the fiercest lineups in baseball but struggled to prevent runs because of a top-heavy pitching staff and some shoddy defense.

This year, it’s the opposite. 

The Blue Jays have the second-best ERA in the majors (3.72), and according to defensive runs saved, they are baseball’s best fielding team by a wide margin, thanks in part to the additions of two defensive wizards in the outfield, center fielder Kevin Kiermaier and left fielder Daulton Varsho.

“Defensively, we’ve grown as a team and have been able to prevent a lot of runs, which has kept us in ballgames,” said Springer, the right fielder. “That’s huge in this league because of the difference that one run can mean between a playoff spot or not.”

At the plate, though, Toronto has been underwhelming. The lineup is averaging 4.55 runs per game, which ranks 16th in the majors and last among the AL’s seven playoff contenders. It also ranks 18th in home runs and 15th in slugging percentage.

Some of that dip in offensive production can be attributed to the players the Blue Jays traded away in the offseason to improve their pitching and defense. Last November, they sent right fielder Teoscar Hernández, who slugged .503 during his six years with Toronto, to the Mariners for righty reliever Erik Swanson. A month later, the Blue Jays traded Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and top catching prospect Gabriel Moreno to the Diamondbacks for Varsho.

That said, many of the Blue Jays’s best hitters have not lived up to their standards. Springer is slugging a career-worst .405, which is 29 percentage points below his previous low. Third baseman Matt Chapman was arguably the best hitter in baseball over the first month of the season, but since then, he has a .207/.298/.360 slash line. And Guerrero Jr. is having one of the most confounding offensive seasons in a long time. Two seasons after he led the American League with a 1.002 OPS, he has dropped to .780, nearly a career low. 

“A lot of people want to talk about the offense because it's not as explosive as it has been in the past,” Springer said. “But every year in baseball is completely different. This team understands who we are. We know our strengths and we are gonna go play to our strengths.”

Those strengths have carried the Blue Jays so far, but there are still 10 days to go in the regular season. Ten days to run away with the second wild-card berth. Ten days to completely unravel. Given how the past two weeks have played out, the final 10 days should provide enough drama to make it feel like the MLB postseason has already arrived.