Blue Jays: Catching the Yankees may be more feasible than the Sox

While the Blue Jays are chasing the Red Sox for the 2nd Wild Card spot, it might be more realistic for them to catch the Yankees for the first one.

After yesterday’s schedule concluded the Red Sox (79-59) further closed the gap to just half a game on the Yankees (78-57), who have dropped five of their last seven. It’s unfortunate that the Blue Jays haven’t been able to make up any ground on the Red Sox with their two big wins against the A’s so far this weekend, but thankfully they picked up a game on the Yankees on Saturday.

For a while it started to feel like the Yankees were running away with the first Wild Card spot, but their latest skid has changed things a bit. In fact, with the way the rest of the schedule is laid out for the Blue Jays, I’d argue they have a better chance of catching New York than Boston.

The biggest difference for that of course is that the Blue Jays get seven more head to head matchups with the Yankees, which accounts for one quarter of their remaining 28 games. The two will start their August series with four games in New York from Monday to Thursday, and the momentum is in favour of the Blue Jays as of this writing. They’ll meet again in Toronto from Sept 28-30 to close out the schedule for the month, and by then that series could be as big as it gets.

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As I already mentioned, the Blue Jays have momentum working in their favour and they really need to take advantage of it. After spending most of the second half of August searching for offence, they’ve now scored 21 runs over their last two games against the A’s. Several individual hitters are really heating up lately as well, including Marcus Semien, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, and thankfully, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The Red Sox won’t have it easy over the next little while either, as they’ll start a three-game series playing the AL East-leading Rays, and then follow that up with a six-game road trip that includes the White Sox and Mariners. Things lighten up considerably after that though, as they still have six games with the Orioles, three with the Nationals, and a pair against the Mets.

With that in mind, the Blue Jays truly need to take matters into their own hands, just as they’ve done so far with the A’s this weekend. They’ll send their ace Robbie Ray to the mound on Sunday in search of a series sweep, and that win would pull them into a tie with the A’s, who they’ll have to leapfrog to get to the Yankees and Red Sox anyway. The series with Oakland was an opportunity to do just that, and so far they’ve taken care of business.

The Blue Jays are going to have to do the same when they get their chances against the Yankees, which begins next week. With the way things are going and having no head to head games left with the Red Sox, they might have to shift their target just a bit, and thankfully they have a direct opportunity to do something about it.