Blue Jays week in review: the good, the bad, the noteworthy for September 1

Every game means a little more now. Every mistake becomes more magnified and every success feels a little more triumphant. That’s the nature of where the Toronto Blue Jays are at in this stage of the season. They lead the American League East as the calendar has flipped to September. But as they move into the final month of the regular season, that lead has shrunk down to a measly three games.

Part of that is due to how mediocre the Blue Jays played this week. Part of it is thanks to the suddenly red hot Yankees and Red Sox who feel like they are not going to be stopped. A 3-3 record over one week at this time of the year is t the worst result, but it feels a lot worse considering the Blue Jays played every game at home and lost a few games in the final at-bats. Here’s a deeper dive into what the Blue Jays did well, did bad and what was noteworthy about the Bleu Jays over the last seven days as they went 2-1 against Minnesota and 1-2 against the Brewers.

The good: Springer keeps the hits coming

Batting average isn’t the barometer of success it was once, but there is still something satisfying of seeing an MLB player hit .300 or higher. It was something George Springer was doing early on in the season, hitting .304 at the end of the day on May 7. But those numbers dropped over the next few weeks - and even though Springers production has been very consistent throughout the year, that averaged has been as low as .241 on June 20, and as high as .290 on August 17.

It has been climbing incrementally over the last month and this past week, Springer went 10-23, with three walks, two home runs and four RBIs and on the final day of August Springers average is sitting right at .300 - tied for the fifth highest average in MLB.

The bad: bullpen blues

All three of the Blue Jays losses this week were due to the ineffectiveness of their relief pitching. On Tuesday, the Blue Jays led going into the ninth, but Jeff Hoffman gave up two runs and the Twins took the game 7-4. 

On Friday night, Shane Bieber pitched a gem through 5.1 innings, but the bullpen couldn’t hold the Brewers in check, and Milwaukee took that series opener 7-2. On Saturday, it was once again Hoffman giving up a pair of home runs in the ninth with the Brewers pulling away with the 4-1 win.

Sure, the Blue Jays bats could have been better in those games as well.  It the woes of this bullpen have been well documented through the month of August, and those woes extended right u tip the very last weekend before Labour Day.

The noteworthy: Tommy Nance a revelation out of the pen

Nance didn’t join the Blue Jays bullpen until July, before the trade deadline, but he may suddenly be the Blue Jays most reliable reliever. Nance has only allowed two earned runs in 22 innings pitched over 19 games while recording 25 strikeouts and walking only five hitters. 

While the majority of Nance’s outings have been in low leverage situations, he came up big for the Blue Jays in what felt like a must-win game on Sunday afternoon against the Brewers.

With the bases loaded and one down in the top of the fifth, Nance entered the game and promptly struck out Andrew Vaughn, before getting Isaac Collin’s to ground out to short to end the inning.
That kept the Blue Jays one run lead intact, allowing the bats to go to work in the bottom half, on-route to the 8-4 win to avoid the sweep.

On deck: A chance to win the AL East?

The Blue Jays meet the Reds in Cincinnati for a three game series beginning Monday, and while you’re never supposed to look ahead in baseball, it’s the next series that fans are waiting for. A three game showdown with the Yankees in New York in what could effectively decide the AL East. 

It’s the final meeting between the two teams in the regular season and the Blue Jays will be trying to hold of the Bronx Bombers from retaking the top spot in the division. The Blue Jays will be hoping to make up an extra game or two if they can defeat the Reds while the Yankees battle the Astros before they welcome the Blue Jays.