TORONTO - The Blue Jays walked into Friday night with a crowd that sounded like it was trying to will a restart into existence.
Rogers Centre had the feel of a reset button being pressed. The applause after the anthems lingered a little longer than usual, and even the first out drew a louder reaction than you’d normally expect. With the team coming out of the All-Star break well under .500 and badly in need of momentum, 42,000 fans seemed to be asking for a new Opening Day.
What they got instead was a 12-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
That result left Toronto seven games below .500 and 3 1/2 games out of a postseason spot, with the trade deadline now two weeks away and the season sitting at a crossroads. The break is over.
The injured players aren’t exactly lining up to save the day. And there’s no avoiding the calendar anymore.
“It’s kind of make-or-break,” pitcher Kevin Gausman said before the break. “We got to start playing better.”
That urgency is real enough that rival executives still expected Toronto to buy at the deadline when the All-Star break arrived, despite the club’s shaky place outside the playoff picture. The logic is easy to follow: the Blue Jays are still drawing sellout crowds, they were in the World Series just last year, ownership wants wins, and there’s still talent on the roster that could turn this around.
But the standings don’t care about reputation, payroll or optimism. Toronto has not played well.
The stars haven’t been steady enough. The rotation has been a problem lately.
And while it’s fair to say the Blue Jays are still alive, they’re also running out of room to prove it.
Manager John Schneider put it plainly before Friday’s game.
“We haven’t played as well or as consistently as we wanted to,” Schneider said before Friday’s game, “but if it wasn’t still attainable it would be a different vibe in here, coming off of last year. The league, kind of thankful that it is where it is, that there’s still some realistic chance of getting in the postseason.”
That chance is getting thinner. Toronto’s playoff odds dropped below 17 percent on Friday according to FanGraphs, and there are 15 games between now and Aug. 3 for the Jays to improve their case before deadline decisions get made.
By then, the record will matter. So will the odds.
So will whatever kind of run this team can put together between now and then.
Friday was not the start of that run.
Spencer Miles, who has already been called on to do a lot for Toronto this summer, was tagged for blooped hits and a homer in a five-run second inning. Chicago kept adding from there, scoring three more in the fifth and four in the seventh. Whatever hope was floating around early on disappeared fast.
Even so, the crowd didn’t fully disappear with the game. Down eight runs in the ninth, fans were still cheering when Ernie Clement reached on an infield hit. That’s where things stand right now: a fanbase hanging onto the possibility that this group can still find the kind of stretch that changes everything.
And there are reasons to think it’s possible, even if the clock is loud. George Springer came into the break with a .791 OPS over his previous 20 games and homered again Friday.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drove three balls over 105 mph against the White Sox and accounted for three of the game’s five hardest-hit balls. Toronto has shown what it can look like when the lineup is clicking.
That’s the hope. One hot stretch and the whole picture changes.
“We haven’t played our best,” Schneider said. “We’ve had a ton of injuries, like every team has.
I’m not putting that as an excuse. But the law of averages says we’re going to play better.
So I like the fact that that is hopefully in front of us.”
The Blue Jays need all of it to arrive now. Guerrero has to get going.
Springer has to keep heating up. Daulton Varsho has to break out of his funk.
Shane Bieber has to settle in. The bullpen has to keep producing.
Schneider said the starters need to be a reason the team wins.
In other words, Toronto needs a lot to go right, and it needs it immediately.
There are 15 games left before the deadline. Maybe the Blue Jays follow the path of the 2024 Detroit Tigers, sell veterans and still catch fire in September.
Maybe they win enough to buy on Aug. 3 and still miss October anyway. But the most likely outcome is simpler than all of that: this next 15-game stretch will decide what kind of season this becomes.
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