Blue Jays week in review: the good, the bad, the noteworthy for July 21

It was a short week but a great week for the Toronto Blue Jays who went 3-0, in a sweep of the San Francisco Giants at Rogers Centre. It was the first series after the All-Star break, marking the unofficial start of the second half of the season and it could not have gone any better for the Blue Jays.

Everyone contributed toward all three wins against a Giants team who were hoping to get on a roll, trying to narrow the gap in the NL Wild Card race. The Blue Jays wouldn’t give them anything easy, and took all three games in three different ways. On Friday, Chris Bassitt danced around ten hits, giving up no runs, striking out five and getting into the seventh inning and the Blue Jays shut out the Giants 4-0. 

On Saturday, the Blue Jays offence came to life in the middle frames. Down by two, they rallied for four runs in the sixth and tacked on two more in the eighth for a 6-3 win. On Sunday, they simply outslugged the Giants, hitting three home runs en route to an 8-6 finale. 

The Blue Jays have now won 10 straight games at home, tying the franchise record in that category, set by the 1985 AL East division champion Blue Jays. Their streak started almost a year to the date of this one tying the record. 

The ‘85 Blue Jays beat the Oakland A’s 11-4 on Sunday, July 21 at Exhibition Stadium in the finale of a three game series. They proceeded to sweep the Seattle Mariners in three games and the California Angels in four games to get the streak to eight games. They went on the road and took three of four from Baltimore, then came back home to host the Rangers. The Blue Jays won the first two of that Rangers series to make it 10 straight at home, before the Rangers avoided the sweep on Sunday, August 4.   

This is also the longest winning streak at home since the team moved to Rogers Centre, (formerly Skydome) in 1989. 

With only the three games on their schedule, let’s break down what was good, bad and noteworthy for the first place Blue Jays this week.

The good: Bottom of the order prevails

The 5-9 hitters in the Blue Jays order had more than half the hits during this series. The Blue Jays totalled 33 base-knocks in the three games against the Giants and  18 of those hits belonged to guys outside of the top four hitters.

Barger, slotted in the number five spot for the entirety of the series, did most of the damage. He went 4-4 on Saturday, and picked up a home run on Sunday while driving in a pair of runs. 

Will Wagner also made the most of his opportunities, with three hits in six at bats, driving in four runs. In total, the Blue Jays 5-9 guys hit .375 this weekend, driving in 12 runs and hitting two of Toronto’s four home runs.