Toronto Blue Jays: The value of having games in hand

The Blue Jays brought themselves right back into the Wild Card race with their recent eight-game winning streak, and they have something else working for them with just 22 games left to play in the regular season.

Fortunately last night’s series-opening loss to the Baltimore Orioles didn’t hurt as much as it could have, as both the Yankees and Red Sox lost their games as well. With that the Jays are still just a half game back of the Yankees for the 2nd Wild Card spot, and 1.5 behind the Red Sox.

We’ve talked a lot about the rest of the regular season schedule here at Jays Journal, especially the remaining matchups for the Blue Jays. While there are debatable advantages in that area, there’s a factor I haven’t really talked about much, and that’s having games in hand.

Oddly enough, the Blue Jays have exactly the games in hand they would theoretically need to catch up to both the Yankees and the Red Sox. At 77-62 the Blue Jays have played 140 games and still have 22 to go. The Yankees are one game ahead on their schedule at 78-62, so that half game lead could be erased just by the Jays getting to play one more.

The same goes for the 80-63 Red Sox, who have just 19 games left on their regular season schedule. Each win for the trailing Blue Jays can earn them a half game on the Red Sox, and those extra opportunities could prove to be very important down the stretch.

The chance to play extra games in the season’s final month could be an advantage as long as the Blue Jays can keep up their recent winning ways. They’ll get one of those opportunities on Saturday when they play a double-header with the Orioles, who are just 46-94. It was unfortunate that the Jays missed a chance to extend their win streak to nine games on Friday, but a pair of Saturday wins could tie them with the Yankees even if New York wins their game with the Mets.

In an absolute best-case scenario for tomorrow, if the Blue Jays swept their double-header and the Red Sox and Yankees both lost, that would pull Toronto into a tie with the Sox for the first Wild Card spot, and give them a 1.0 game lead on the Yankees. That’s how tight things have gotten lately.

The work doesn’t have to all be done tomorrow, but it does go to show the value of having games in hand. Hopefully the Blue Jays can take advantage.