Why Toronto has enough depth to outlast a tough schedule

The Toronto Blue Jays might just have the horses to pull themselves over the finish line. Talk about a total team effort, Toronto took down the Houston Astros 4-3 on Tuesday night in the opener of their three game series at Rogers Centre. Toronto needed everybody in the lineup - quite literally - in order to squeak this one out. Every available player from the bench made their way into the game and that might be more of the norm from this point onwards.

The Blue Jays are down Bo Bichette for the next little while as he landed on the 10-day Injured List on Tuesday afternoon. They also learned that Anthony Santander suffered a setback just as he was beginning his rehab assignment after first landing on the IL at the end of May. Without those two big names, the Blue Jays will have to keep winning with an "all-hands on deck" approach as they did against the Astros. The Blue Jays used three pinch hitters, a defensive replacement and a pinch runner in the game.

In the end, one of those pinch hitters, Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who said he's willing to do anything to help the team win in his second stint in Toronto), drove in the tying runs in the ninth and the pinch runner, Tyler Heineman, stayed in the game and ended up driving in the winning run in the tenth. That winning run was scored by Myles Straw who was a pinch hitter himself in the eighth inning. Meantime, Ernie Clement, who got the start at shortstop in place of Bichette, went 1-3 with a walk and scored a run in the ninth on the hit by Kiner-Falefa.

The Blue Jays have made it a habit to win games by committee and Manager John Schneider alluded to that in his post game comments. Schneider said, "It's been this group the whole year, if you let them hang around they are going to find a way to get it done...baseballs funny sometimes. Ernie has been doing this all year and it's funny that he gets a big hit, and then (IKF) gets a big hit as well."

The Blue Jays were hitless through the first five innings until one of their premier players, George Springer, broke that goose egg by hitting a solo home run to get Toronto on the board. The Blue Jays didn't score again until they got the two runs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game.

What this mix of talent does is it allows Schneider to play the advantage in a number of situations. Whether it's using guys like Davis Schneider or Ty France as guys off the bench who can provide some pop from the right side, or using lefties later in games if needed such as Joey Loperfido (who was just recalled) or Nathan Lukes - there is no shortage of options for the Blue Jays to always be in the best possible position to succeed.

That was Toronto's 43rd come from behind win and the Blue Jays now have a three-game lead over the Yankees in the AL East and their magic number to clinch the division is down to 16, while their magic number just to make the playoffs is now under double digits, sitting at nine.