How concerning are the Blue Jays home and road splits?

Despite the Chicago White Sox winning two of the last three games, the Toronto Blue Jays have largely turned the Rogers Centre into a tough place for visiting teams to play in this season. They are 25-16 and have outscored their opponents 208-180 after their latest home stand.

How concerning are the Blue Jays home and road splits?

It’s not just the outlying numbers that have been impressive as their underlying statistics have been elite as well. When playing at home, the Blue Jays have the best OPS (.794), the best wRC+ (125), and their 5.21 runs per game at home are more than any other team in the American League.  

Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to replicate that kind of success when they play on the road. Going into Tuesday night’s affair against the Guardians in Cleveland, the Blue Jays are 16-20 with a run differential of -38, being outscored 160-122. Their OPS of .654 and wRC+ of 85 is 13th and they are scoring 3.38 runs per game.

The contrast is concerning because it feels like such a big drop off in production depending on where they play. So much so that it could be the difference between winning the division and missing the playoffs completely. It may sound dramatic, but out of the three division leaders and five teams within the wild card mix, the Blue Jays have the second worst run differential and their expected win-loss record of 37-40 is the second worst among those teams.

If we rearranged the standings based on those expectations, the Blue Jays would be seventh in the American League, instead of having the fifth best record they currently have and they would be on the outside of the wild card spots. Being under .500 and outside of a playoff spot at this time of the year wouldn’t be the worst position to be in, but it wouldn’t spark as much confidence in the team being deadline buyers as there is right now.

Maybe more concerning is the fact that their playoff odds, according to Baseball Reference, currently sit at 32.2%, with the Tampa Bay Rays, Seattle Mariners and Boston Red Sox having greater odds to capture those three wild card spots.

Yes, those are all numbers based on analytical perception and don’t always offer an accurate prediction of what is to come, but with the Blue Jays showcasing a worse record on the road, there should be some urgency from the team to start pulling their weight when they play away from Rogers Centre. They are currently slashing .241/.308/.346 on the road with 25 home runs, compared to .270/.340/.454 with 54 homers at home. Those 25 home runs are the least for a road team in the American League and their 296 hits are second last.

Their last two road trips have also offered a mixed bag. They played 15 games and went 7-8, getting swept twice; once to the Rays (May 23-25) and once to the Phillies (June 13-15). But they also won the other three series, including a sweep of the Cardinals (June 9-11).

The next two road trips will be very telling of whether the Blue Jays have adapted to life on the road in 2025. They square up against two teams directly in competition with them for the wild card hunt with games in Cleveland and Boston this week. The Blue Jays then take on two of the worst teams in the American League with visits to Chicago to play the White Sox (July 7-9) and somewhere in California to play the homeless Athletics (July 11-13).