Why Sean Keys could steal a roster spot in the Blue Jays' postseason push

It's been a season long issue that the Toronto Blue Jays have yet to solve, getting power from the left-side of the plate. As a team, the Blue Jays have hit just 38 home runs from the left-side, tied for the third fewest in MLB (Going into Saturday, Aug. 22).

Jesús Sánchez and Andrés Giménez have hit eight each, while Nathan Lukes has seven. On the other side, the Blue Jays have hit 74 home runs, 14th in the league, mostly powered by Kazuma Okamoto's 26 home runs, while George Springer is the only other Blue Jay in double digits with 12.

The Blue Jays are running out of time to correct that though. With the deadline behind them, they'll need to make that change internally. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the obvious answer here. If the face of the franchise can come off the 7-day concussion Injured List and tee off like he did in the postseason last year, it would help erase a season long drought that nobody saw coming. And while the Blue Jays will take some power from anywhere they can get it, Guerrero does hit from the right side.

That still leaves an opportunity for someone to start mashing from the left side, and that someone may be a player who is currently smacking the ball with Triple-A Buffalo. Sean Keys, who made his MLB debut earlier this season, is likely one of the Blue Jays' best options to steal a roster spot as Toronto looks to earn a playoff berth.

Keys has hit 27 home runs in the minors this season. He began the year with Double-A New Hampshire and hit .285 with 14 home runs before getting promoted to Buffalo at the beginning of June. He wound up in Toronto before the month was over, but after hitting just .167 with one home run, he was demoted back to Triple-A.

In 25 games since that demotion he's hit .281 with six home runs. While six doesn't seem like that much, he's done most of his damage within the last week. He hit two on Friday (Aug. 21) and is slugging .765 with an OPS of 1.276 since last Tuesday.

He's also walked more (16.3%) than he has struck out (14%), and posted a .400 BABIP over that span. Keys may be getting hot again at just the right time and nobody in the entire Blue Jays organization this year (MLB included) has hit more home runs than Keys has.

Sean Keys doesn't have a perfect roster role, but that might not matter as Blue Jays just need wins

The issue the Blue Jays may find is that Keys doesn't have an obvious position to play, otherwise he may already be at the MLB level. He's a first baseman / DH, who occasionally plays third. The Blue Jays have Guerrero, Springer and Okamoto at those positions respectively. However, there's an argument to make that perhaps Keys could platoon with Springer at DH, although Springer has hit righties better (.242 BA, .722 OPS, 10 HRs) than he has hit lefties (.219 BA, .658 OPS, two home runs).

But Keys could also be a useful bench bat, regardless. On Friday night against the New York Yankees, Brandon Valenzuela doubled off David Bednar to open up the ninth inning. That brought the tying run to the plate, but the Blue Jays didn't have a ton of options to go to on the bench. They had already used Springer to pinch hit for Lukes in the seventh, and then Davis Schneider replaced Springer defensively.

Righties Charles McAdoo, and Myles Straw both got out, before Brett Bateman struck out to end the ball game. Perhaps if Sean Keys was on the bench, he could have pinch hit in that situation and given the Blue Jays the platoon advantage against Bednar. With 27 home runs under his belt this season, there's no reason to think he can't run into one in a clutch situation.

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