So you think you're pretty hot, eh? You think there's nothing that can knock you off your hill?
Toronto last played a postseason game on October 23 1993 (I think we all remember that one) and since then it's been nary a sniff of playoff baseball for the local twenty-five. Not only that, but the general perception has been that the team hasn't even been in contention for a playoff spot late in a season since that majestic blast off of Joe's bat. Why is that? Does this franchise always crumble as the season wears on? Is this even completely true? Is some kind of "Curse of Carter" in play here? Am I running out of question marks yet? Well, lets take a look at some interesting seasons over the past two decades.
*As a side note, while I was looking through these seasons I stumbled upon the 1998 team, which had Roger Clemens, Woody Williams, Dave Stieb, Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter all start games that year. If only they had been the 83 Stieb, the 2003 Williams, the 2005 Carpenter and the 2008 Halladay. That team probably would've won 110 games.*
(1994)
The year the Blue Jays were gunning for the three-peat. Toronto had a modest 30-30 on June 12th, despite the absence of Duane Ward and any good starting pitcher not named Hentgen. By the beginning of July, they were 32-45, a 2-15 run over two and a half weeks. Ouch. Once the strike hit the Blue Jays had fought back to 55-60, but the damage had been done. While it is unlikely they could've come all the way back to another division title (they were 16 games behind the Yankees), it's a shame the season could not have been completed. Joe Carter already had 103 RBIs, Paul Molitor was batting .341 and had stolen 20 bases without being caught. Not bad for a 37 year old.
(1999)
The '99 team hit a high-water mark on August 11th, beating the Twins 6-3 to improve their record to 65-51. The Blue Birds were a game ahead of Boston for the American League Wildcard, and somewhat within striking distance of the Yankees at 6 1/2 games behind. Well, the Red Sox went 31-17 the rest of the way (best in the league) while Toronto went 19-27 (third worst in the AL). A seven game losing streak immediately after that victory over the Twins is mostly to blame, though it's awfully hard to keep up with a team winning 64 percent of their games down the stretch.
(2001)
Riding a 16-9 April, the Blue Birds enjoyed a 19-12 record on May 6th, tied with Boston for first place and half a game ahead of New York. A 1-8 stretch followed immediately, including an 0-6 homestand against eventual 100+ game winners Oakland and Seattle. Just like that, the team was treading water at the .500 mark and in third place. By June 3rd Toronto was 26-30, 7 games behind Boston. A 6-12 run after the All-Star break, including three straight blowouts at the hands of the Yankees, put them ten games under .500 and any hope of playoff baseball was as flat as Joey Hamilton's fastball.
(2003)
One of the most fun Jays teams I've watched in my relatively short (compared to many others around here) span of following the team. Behind Roy Halladay's first Cy Young season and a Delgado led offense determined to crush opposing pitchers, Toronto was 46-34 on June 27th, in third place but only three games behind first place New York. Unfortunately, what had been an up and down season already (they were 10-18 after April) continued as such, with a fifteen game stretch before the all-star break where the Blue Jays only won three, capped by a 1-5 homestand against the two teams they were chasing: Boston and New York. The 2003 squad did win 86 games when it was all wrapped up, thanks to Halladay and Delgado's historically excellent seasons, but still finished 15 games back of a 101 win Yankees team destined for several memorable playoff moments.
*For some reason in my mind, I always refer to this as the Greg Myers Year. Myers hitting .307? Who saw that coming? This team also featured maybe the worst bullpen I've ever seen, with such stalwarts as Tanyon Sturtze, Jeff Tam, Aquilino Lopez and Dan Reichert in prominent roles. It was Frank Catalanotto's first season as a Blue Jay, Vernon Wells true breakout year (and arguably still his best ever season) and the year Reed Johnson hit home runs in the Blue Jays first and last at-bat of the same game. Even John "Way Back" Wasdin appeared! Fun times.*
(2005)
A good Blue Jays team that seems forgotten by many (I for one was surprised how strong they were, looking back). On August 17, they stood at 63-57, seven games back of first place but four back of wildcard leading Oakland. Unfortunately, the ensuing off-day might have disrupted the Blue Birds rhythm, as they proceeded to lose seven of the next eight games, or twelve of the next fifteen. The team was at 67-69 and completely out of the playoff picture in early September, wasting Josh Towers' best season (13-12, 3.71 in over 200 innings. Yep.) and Gustavo Chacin's only good season (13-9, 3.72).
(2006)
The off-season before 2006 was a lot like the one before the 2013 season in terms of excitement, thanks to big acquisitions. While the media hooplah surrounding the beginnings of the 2006 team wasn't quite to the degree of that which swirled (and probably strangled) the 2013 squad, the Blue Jays were looking like a big deal. The 2005 team had featured great pitching but a very weak attack (Frank Catalanotto led the team with a 115 OPS+) so J.P. Riccardi went to the trading block. In came big bopper Troy Glaus, doubles machine Lyle Overbay (still a favourite of mine) and the slowest Molina of them all (Bengie). The pitching was boosted also, with the team adding a titan of a man with a deceptive delivery to close games (B.J.) and the million dollar arm attached to the less impressive head (A.J.). It was a team built to contend and they stayed in the thick of the race in the early going, finishing May with a 29-23 record and a just a pair of games behind the division lead. Toronto continued their consistent play, despite major regressions from their two best starters of 2005 (Towers and Chacin) and Burnett's inability to remain healthy for much of the first half. The squad was 49-39 at the all-star break, five back of a playoff spot and sending five representatives to the mid-season classic (Wells, Ryan, Halladay, Glaus and Rios). They seemed good enough to have a chance. Once the break finished they blew out a few teams before a big west coast swing. They were 56-45 on July 26h, heading into Oakland for a four game series, trailing the division by five and the wildcard Yankees by four.
Oakland was in the midst of beginning a classic A's late season surge so their barely .500 record at the time was misleading. Toronto lost two of the first three, all reasonably close games, but had Halladay going in the finale against an obscure arm named Shane Komine making his first of two ever starts in the majors. Despite a leadoff home run from Reed Johnson, Komine stifled the Blue Jay bats and left the game after six with a 2-1 lead. The A's added another in the seventh and suddenly the lead was 3-1 heading into the final two innings. These Toronto bats were not ones to go quietly into the warm Northern California afternoon, however. A two out rally featuring a Hinske RBI single in the eighth cut the lead to 3-2, giving Huston Street little wiggle room in the ninth.
I remember this particular game very, very well. I was listening to it with my dad (whose excellent work I'm sure many of you are familiar with around here) on the radio at his old house while we constantly refreshed GameDay. To this day I have no actual idea what this game actually looked like, the only visual memory I have is not of the action but of the environment. It was one of those sweltering humid Toronto days, and as we followed this game from a basement with only a decades old fan and an open door praying to entice a stray breeze to cool us, we were running out of things to wipe the sweat from our faces. Of course, the sweat was as much from the nervousness of this game as it was the horrible Toronto humidity. (Seriously. The summers here are actually enjoyable temperature-wise maybe one third of the time. The rest of it you're wanting to invent some freakish medical technique to inject ice-cubes under your skin). Anyhow, this was a very tense game. Street came in for the ninth and it sounded like it was over. But...
...Catalanotto singled on the first pitch he saw from Street. Vernon Wells popped out (see, he did that all the time even when he was really good) but Glaus then ripped one past the shortstop to put two on. Toronto was in business. Overbay worked the count to 2-2 before launching a deep one into centerfield that no one could catch. Two runs scored. Suddenly the Blue Jays were on top. An Aaron Hill double two batters later scored Overbay and gave Toronto the insurance run certain to finish the game.
It sounds strange to say this now but back in 2006, B.J. Ryan was completely untouchable closing games. He was Casey Janssen without the constant worries about velocity and many, many more strikeouts. 2006 B.J. just made batters look dumb, and it was all just a 93 mph fastball and a hard slider that looked exactly the same coming out of that jerky delivery of his. A 5-3 lead for him was automatic in 2006. My dad and I looked at each other knowing the Jays had this one. Ryan set down two of the first three (a cheap sounding single from Mark Ellis the only problem) and one more out was all that remained. Mark Kotsay came up, fouled off about a half-dozen pitches and somehow drew a walk for his trouble. Two on, two out for Milton Bradley. No biggie. Ryan fell behind 2-1. And then...
It was hit deep. Vernon went back. It was over his head. Over the wall. The game was over. The A's had won. Our indestructible superman was human after all. My dad and I had no words in response, only shock and surprise, while the hot air beat the reality onto us harder and sweatier.
The 2006 team lost the next five in a row, suddenly finding themselves at 57-53 and way out of a playoff spot within just a week and a half. Some Shea said some ship was sinking and in retrospect that ship did sink, but we marooned his butt to some California bay and got a good bounty season of a reliever as payment. The squad still managed to finish reasonably strong and claim second place from a faltering Boston team, the only second place finish Toronto has enjoyed in over two decades now.
*For all you that want to look at things positively, the Blue Jays have managed to turn Troy Glaus (from Orlando Hudson and Miguel Batista) into Scott Rolen, and turn Rolen into Edwin Encarnacion. Both Rolen and Glaus have long retired, while Edwin has put up two better offensive seasons as a Jay then any one of theirs. Riccardi handled several things badly but this sequence was a tidy piece of business*
(2009)
The 2006 team is my favourite Blue Jays team of the past decade (if you couldn't tell by my long reminiscing there) but the 2009 team is probably my least favourite. Never have I finished watching a season with such a sense of bleakness that I wondered if committing to another season would be worth it. Clubhouse discontent, an accomplished manager of former glory seeming disinterested, an absolute void of young promising starting pitching anywhere (sorry Brett Cecil), the best pitcher in team history (sorry Stieb) wanting out, and way too much Kevin Millar for any sane mind to handle. I mean, people were screaming for Randy Ruiz to get a bigger opportunity. Randy Ruiz! These were bad, bad times. Yet, these guys actually started out 27-14, in first place by 3.5 games as of May 18th. What happened? Something quite unfortunate: a nine game losing streak. The squad hung survived above the .500 mark for a while longer though, enjoying a 41-34 record on June 6th after a win over the Phillies. Then things went wrong again. Badly. They went on a 3-12 run until the All-Star break, ending up at 44-46 and never even getting a hopeful whiff of contention again.
By the end of the year, we knew Riccardi was toast, Halladay was gone and the next few years weren't going to be pretty. Frankly, Jose Bautista morphed into a superman hitter at just the right time for this franchise. His sudden Ruthian home run prowess gave us all something so unexpectedly exciting after such deflation, and for that I will always be a Bautista fan.
Anyway, back from Memory Lane, (the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain, very strange) the 2014 Blue Jays are playing well. Really, really well, but this isn't the only team of the past twenty years to have a strong record at least two months into the year. History hints at another collapse, however none of those teams I mentioned have been in first place (with a modest cushion) like this squad is. At the risk of sounding obvious, lets just get deeper into the season, see if these guys can steal games they don't deserve to win and enjoy the ride. If they can avoid the nine game losing streaks, or the 3-15 runs, they might be okay. If only it were so easy.
Toronto last played a postseason game on October 23 1993 (I think we all remember that one) and since then it's been nary a sniff of playoff baseball for the local twenty-five. Not only that, but the general perception has been that the team hasn't even been in contention for a playoff spot late in a season since that majestic blast off of Joe's bat. Why is that? Does this franchise always crumble as the season wears on? Is this even completely true? Is some kind of "Curse of Carter" in play here? Am I running out of question marks yet? Well, lets take a look at some interesting seasons over the past two decades.
*As a side note, while I was looking through these seasons I stumbled upon the 1998 team, which had Roger Clemens, Woody Williams, Dave Stieb, Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter all start games that year. If only they had been the 83 Stieb, the 2003 Williams, the 2005 Carpenter and the 2008 Halladay. That team probably would've won 110 games.*
(1994)
The year the Blue Jays were gunning for the three-peat. Toronto had a modest 30-30 on June 12th, despite the absence of Duane Ward and any good starting pitcher not named Hentgen. By the beginning of July, they were 32-45, a 2-15 run over two and a half weeks. Ouch. Once the strike hit the Blue Jays had fought back to 55-60, but the damage had been done. While it is unlikely they could've come all the way back to another division title (they were 16 games behind the Yankees), it's a shame the season could not have been completed. Joe Carter already had 103 RBIs, Paul Molitor was batting .341 and had stolen 20 bases without being caught. Not bad for a 37 year old.
(1999)
The '99 team hit a high-water mark on August 11th, beating the Twins 6-3 to improve their record to 65-51. The Blue Birds were a game ahead of Boston for the American League Wildcard, and somewhat within striking distance of the Yankees at 6 1/2 games behind. Well, the Red Sox went 31-17 the rest of the way (best in the league) while Toronto went 19-27 (third worst in the AL). A seven game losing streak immediately after that victory over the Twins is mostly to blame, though it's awfully hard to keep up with a team winning 64 percent of their games down the stretch.
(2001)
Riding a 16-9 April, the Blue Birds enjoyed a 19-12 record on May 6th, tied with Boston for first place and half a game ahead of New York. A 1-8 stretch followed immediately, including an 0-6 homestand against eventual 100+ game winners Oakland and Seattle. Just like that, the team was treading water at the .500 mark and in third place. By June 3rd Toronto was 26-30, 7 games behind Boston. A 6-12 run after the All-Star break, including three straight blowouts at the hands of the Yankees, put them ten games under .500 and any hope of playoff baseball was as flat as Joey Hamilton's fastball.
(2003)
One of the most fun Jays teams I've watched in my relatively short (compared to many others around here) span of following the team. Behind Roy Halladay's first Cy Young season and a Delgado led offense determined to crush opposing pitchers, Toronto was 46-34 on June 27th, in third place but only three games behind first place New York. Unfortunately, what had been an up and down season already (they were 10-18 after April) continued as such, with a fifteen game stretch before the all-star break where the Blue Jays only won three, capped by a 1-5 homestand against the two teams they were chasing: Boston and New York. The 2003 squad did win 86 games when it was all wrapped up, thanks to Halladay and Delgado's historically excellent seasons, but still finished 15 games back of a 101 win Yankees team destined for several memorable playoff moments.
*For some reason in my mind, I always refer to this as the Greg Myers Year. Myers hitting .307? Who saw that coming? This team also featured maybe the worst bullpen I've ever seen, with such stalwarts as Tanyon Sturtze, Jeff Tam, Aquilino Lopez and Dan Reichert in prominent roles. It was Frank Catalanotto's first season as a Blue Jay, Vernon Wells true breakout year (and arguably still his best ever season) and the year Reed Johnson hit home runs in the Blue Jays first and last at-bat of the same game. Even John "Way Back" Wasdin appeared! Fun times.*
(2005)
A good Blue Jays team that seems forgotten by many (I for one was surprised how strong they were, looking back). On August 17, they stood at 63-57, seven games back of first place but four back of wildcard leading Oakland. Unfortunately, the ensuing off-day might have disrupted the Blue Birds rhythm, as they proceeded to lose seven of the next eight games, or twelve of the next fifteen. The team was at 67-69 and completely out of the playoff picture in early September, wasting Josh Towers' best season (13-12, 3.71 in over 200 innings. Yep.) and Gustavo Chacin's only good season (13-9, 3.72).
(2006)
The off-season before 2006 was a lot like the one before the 2013 season in terms of excitement, thanks to big acquisitions. While the media hooplah surrounding the beginnings of the 2006 team wasn't quite to the degree of that which swirled (and probably strangled) the 2013 squad, the Blue Jays were looking like a big deal. The 2005 team had featured great pitching but a very weak attack (Frank Catalanotto led the team with a 115 OPS+) so J.P. Riccardi went to the trading block. In came big bopper Troy Glaus, doubles machine Lyle Overbay (still a favourite of mine) and the slowest Molina of them all (Bengie). The pitching was boosted also, with the team adding a titan of a man with a deceptive delivery to close games (B.J.) and the million dollar arm attached to the less impressive head (A.J.). It was a team built to contend and they stayed in the thick of the race in the early going, finishing May with a 29-23 record and a just a pair of games behind the division lead. Toronto continued their consistent play, despite major regressions from their two best starters of 2005 (Towers and Chacin) and Burnett's inability to remain healthy for much of the first half. The squad was 49-39 at the all-star break, five back of a playoff spot and sending five representatives to the mid-season classic (Wells, Ryan, Halladay, Glaus and Rios). They seemed good enough to have a chance. Once the break finished they blew out a few teams before a big west coast swing. They were 56-45 on July 26h, heading into Oakland for a four game series, trailing the division by five and the wildcard Yankees by four.
Oakland was in the midst of beginning a classic A's late season surge so their barely .500 record at the time was misleading. Toronto lost two of the first three, all reasonably close games, but had Halladay going in the finale against an obscure arm named Shane Komine making his first of two ever starts in the majors. Despite a leadoff home run from Reed Johnson, Komine stifled the Blue Jay bats and left the game after six with a 2-1 lead. The A's added another in the seventh and suddenly the lead was 3-1 heading into the final two innings. These Toronto bats were not ones to go quietly into the warm Northern California afternoon, however. A two out rally featuring a Hinske RBI single in the eighth cut the lead to 3-2, giving Huston Street little wiggle room in the ninth.
I remember this particular game very, very well. I was listening to it with my dad (whose excellent work I'm sure many of you are familiar with around here) on the radio at his old house while we constantly refreshed GameDay. To this day I have no actual idea what this game actually looked like, the only visual memory I have is not of the action but of the environment. It was one of those sweltering humid Toronto days, and as we followed this game from a basement with only a decades old fan and an open door praying to entice a stray breeze to cool us, we were running out of things to wipe the sweat from our faces. Of course, the sweat was as much from the nervousness of this game as it was the horrible Toronto humidity. (Seriously. The summers here are actually enjoyable temperature-wise maybe one third of the time. The rest of it you're wanting to invent some freakish medical technique to inject ice-cubes under your skin). Anyhow, this was a very tense game. Street came in for the ninth and it sounded like it was over. But...
...Catalanotto singled on the first pitch he saw from Street. Vernon Wells popped out (see, he did that all the time even when he was really good) but Glaus then ripped one past the shortstop to put two on. Toronto was in business. Overbay worked the count to 2-2 before launching a deep one into centerfield that no one could catch. Two runs scored. Suddenly the Blue Jays were on top. An Aaron Hill double two batters later scored Overbay and gave Toronto the insurance run certain to finish the game.
It sounds strange to say this now but back in 2006, B.J. Ryan was completely untouchable closing games. He was Casey Janssen without the constant worries about velocity and many, many more strikeouts. 2006 B.J. just made batters look dumb, and it was all just a 93 mph fastball and a hard slider that looked exactly the same coming out of that jerky delivery of his. A 5-3 lead for him was automatic in 2006. My dad and I looked at each other knowing the Jays had this one. Ryan set down two of the first three (a cheap sounding single from Mark Ellis the only problem) and one more out was all that remained. Mark Kotsay came up, fouled off about a half-dozen pitches and somehow drew a walk for his trouble. Two on, two out for Milton Bradley. No biggie. Ryan fell behind 2-1. And then...
It was hit deep. Vernon went back. It was over his head. Over the wall. The game was over. The A's had won. Our indestructible superman was human after all. My dad and I had no words in response, only shock and surprise, while the hot air beat the reality onto us harder and sweatier.
The 2006 team lost the next five in a row, suddenly finding themselves at 57-53 and way out of a playoff spot within just a week and a half. Some Shea said some ship was sinking and in retrospect that ship did sink, but we marooned his butt to some California bay and got a good bounty season of a reliever as payment. The squad still managed to finish reasonably strong and claim second place from a faltering Boston team, the only second place finish Toronto has enjoyed in over two decades now.
*For all you that want to look at things positively, the Blue Jays have managed to turn Troy Glaus (from Orlando Hudson and Miguel Batista) into Scott Rolen, and turn Rolen into Edwin Encarnacion. Both Rolen and Glaus have long retired, while Edwin has put up two better offensive seasons as a Jay then any one of theirs. Riccardi handled several things badly but this sequence was a tidy piece of business*
(2009)
The 2006 team is my favourite Blue Jays team of the past decade (if you couldn't tell by my long reminiscing there) but the 2009 team is probably my least favourite. Never have I finished watching a season with such a sense of bleakness that I wondered if committing to another season would be worth it. Clubhouse discontent, an accomplished manager of former glory seeming disinterested, an absolute void of young promising starting pitching anywhere (sorry Brett Cecil), the best pitcher in team history (sorry Stieb) wanting out, and way too much Kevin Millar for any sane mind to handle. I mean, people were screaming for Randy Ruiz to get a bigger opportunity. Randy Ruiz! These were bad, bad times. Yet, these guys actually started out 27-14, in first place by 3.5 games as of May 18th. What happened? Something quite unfortunate: a nine game losing streak. The squad hung survived above the .500 mark for a while longer though, enjoying a 41-34 record on June 6th after a win over the Phillies. Then things went wrong again. Badly. They went on a 3-12 run until the All-Star break, ending up at 44-46 and never even getting a hopeful whiff of contention again.
By the end of the year, we knew Riccardi was toast, Halladay was gone and the next few years weren't going to be pretty. Frankly, Jose Bautista morphed into a superman hitter at just the right time for this franchise. His sudden Ruthian home run prowess gave us all something so unexpectedly exciting after such deflation, and for that I will always be a Bautista fan.
Anyway, back from Memory Lane, (the banker never wears a Mac in the pouring rain, very strange) the 2014 Blue Jays are playing well. Really, really well, but this isn't the only team of the past twenty years to have a strong record at least two months into the year. History hints at another collapse, however none of those teams I mentioned have been in first place (with a modest cushion) like this squad is. At the risk of sounding obvious, lets just get deeper into the season, see if these guys can steal games they don't deserve to win and enjoy the ride. If they can avoid the nine game losing streaks, or the 3-15 runs, they might be okay. If only it were so easy.
