The Blue Jays are running out of room for mistakes, and the timing could not be worse.
Toronto enters the final stretch of the season clinging to its postseason hopes, sitting one game behind the Cleveland Guardians for the third Wild Card spot in the AL as of Sept. 14.
With only 11 games left, there’s no cushion left for the kind of sloppy baseball that has haunted them all year. The numbers tell the story plainly: the Blue Jays are 19-23 in one-run games, and a couple more clean finishes could have changed everything.
That’s what makes the recent wave of defensive lapses and baserunning blunders so brutal. A social media compilation from Yankees Files put a spotlight on a long list of Blue Jays miscues from the 2026 season, pulling together routine plays that slipped away in the field and a string of baffling outs on the bases.
These weren’t highlight-reel disasters. They were the kind of plays big leaguers are supposed to handle without thinking.
The sting is sharper because of what Buck Martinez said last September. During a Blue Jays broadcast of a September 2025 game against the Houston Astros, Martinez took a shot at the Yankees after hearing a score update.
“The Yankees, they're not a good team,” Martinez said after hearing a score update. “I don't care what their record is.
They have a lot of wild pitches, they make a lot of mistakes in the field, and they don't run the bases very well. If they don't hit home runs, they don't have a chance to win.”
Now the roles have flipped in a way Yankees fans are happy to watch. Toronto’s own season has been defined by the same sort of fundamental breakdowns Martinez was mocking.
The Blue Jays have 90 errors through their first 151 games, which is more than the Yankees have committed this year. That’s a sharp reversal from last season, when Toronto finished with eight fewer errors than New York.
And with Louis Varland in the bullpen, the Blue Jays can’t help but wonder how different this race might look if the mental mistakes had been cleaned up sooner. Two more wins would already have them in the playoff mix. Instead, they’re left fighting for survival while the clock keeps ticking.
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