The Toronto Blue Jays are getting hot at the right time as the summer months end. Despite being 61-65, the Blue Jays have won five of their last seven games, including games against the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.
Moreover, this recent form has Toronto 0.5 back out of the final Wild Card spot in the American League after the baseball action on Aug. 17. After edging the Red Sox and the Yankees, the Blue Jays will get another AL East team in the Tampa Bay Rays.
If Toronto can continue this impressive form against the Rays and certain results go their way, they might find themselves in a Wild Card spot. Nonetheless, Blue Jays reporter Keegan Matheson shared his thoughts on this team’s hot streak that has them in the Wild Card race.
“This is a playoff push that I was not expecting,” Matheson said during an Aug. 17 appearance on “Overdrive.” “I don’t think anyone really was, and I’m so surprised by this… This team is not amazing me. My God, they still have a losing record. Let’s not go too wild. But they’re surprising me now.
“And that’s why you watch 500 hours of ball every summer. They might surprise you every once in a while. And this team has a different energy right now, man. It is fun to be around. It is at least loosely watchable.”
Blue Jays Have the Pitching to Secure Wild Card Spot
Moreover, in the same segment, TSN’s Aaron Korolnek hints that, because some AL teams are lousy for the final Wild Card spot, there’s a real possibility Toronto can secure it thanks to this playoff push in recent days.
“The AL Wild Card standings and this is a low bar in the Wild Card right now,” Korolnek added in that same segment. “Unbelievable, the ineptitude in the American League. I mean, everybody is so incredibly average, and there really hasn’t been anyone who’s taking it, or it’s just, ah, you take it one day, you take it.
“Texas has just been brutal of late. They can’t stop losing. They have a bunch of injuries now that they’re dealing with. And when you look at the Jays, I think the one thing that they have versus the litany of other mid-teams in the chase for the third spot in the American League Wild Card is four quality starters, four guys that you can at least rely on every fifth day.”
Toronto Could Still Get Better Amid Impressive Form
Meanwhile, MLB Network Radio’s Cole Tucker believes that the Blue Jays haven’t played their best baseball despite their current form. If Toronto can start slugging in this final stretch of the 2026 MLB season, then AL East teams could be taking all three Wild Card spots.
“They’re a hot team right now,” Tucker said in an Aug. 17 video from MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. “It feels weird saying that just because they’re three games under .500, but in the American League, that’s a hot team right now. They’ve been pesky. They haven’t slugged. They haven’t hit the ball over the fence very often.
“A lot has been made about Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who just went on the IL with a concussion, about how he hasn’t hit a home run at home this year. They’re still waiting on that. But with where we are in the standings, there could be four AL East teams making it to the playoffs, which is just absurd.”
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