Blue Jays American League East Recap: Jays Taking Flight

Each week, Jays Journal will take a look at the bigger picture of the American League East to help frame not only where the Blue Jays are in the standings, but why they are there.

New York Yankees: 22-13
Baltimore Orioles: 22-14
Boston Red Sox: 19-18
Tampa Bay Rays: 19-21
Toronto Blue Jays: 17-21

The Toronto Blue Jays showed the Baseball world they are serious threats this week. They faced a pair of tough teams in the reigning AL Champion Cleveland Indians, and a surging Seattle Mariners team. Toronto took two of three from Cleveland in a hard fought series that saw the return of Edwin Encarnacion to Rogers Centre. They then took this momentum into a four game sweep of the Mariners during Mothers Day weekend. Their five game winning streak has the Blue Jays one game behind the Rays, two and a half behind the Red Sox, and six and a half from first. They’ll look to carry their momentum against the Atlanta Braves in a home/away split series.

The Blue Jays received contributions from all across the Diamond. Toronto’s pitching staff was able to limit an excellent Mariners offense to just five runs across 22 innings. The bullpen then allowed just one run across the remaining 14. Offense was found from most places on the team as well. Ryan Goins had a walk off single in the bottom of the ninth on Wednesday, Jose Bautista homered three times this week, and Kevin Pillar remained as hot as ever, hitting a walk off Home Run on Mothers Day while also taking over the AL hits leaderboard.

Final Takeaway:

The Blue Jays got Aaron Sanchez back from the DL and it looks like Troy Tulowitzki will return this week. With several others progressing, the Blue Jays could very quickly make run for contention.