Alex Anthopoulos has shown the baseball world that the Toronto Blue Jays are now all in for a post season berth. The Blue Jays had arguably the loudest trade deadlines in the team’s history. In the span of a week, the Jays added Troy Tulowitzki, LaTroy Hawkins, Mark Lowe, Ben Revere and, yes, David Price, and the team is now looking for successful final push to make it to the postseason for the first time since 1993.
Anthopoulos has done the work, now the players need to put up and shut up. There can be no more complaints about moves being made. There can be no more excuses, and there is no looking back.
With a good mix of rookie and veteran talent, the Jays have given themselves great odds of making it. There is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to, as their PR team has said this season, come together. The Jays have a handful of guys who have played in the postseason before in Josh Donaldson, Russell Martin, Mark Buehrle, and the aforementioned players in Tulo, Hawkins and Price. Their experience playing in October should help the players who are hungry to make it there for the first time ever.
Can they do it? Only time will tell, but with all the moves made recently, things are looking good. They added a top tier starting pitcher, two more arms for the bullpen, a speedy outfielder, and an all-star shortstop. Add in all the great batters they already had, and it would seem that they have a great chance to go far.
Since the Tulo trade the Jays have gone 11-1; they swept the Twins in a four game series, taking over one of the wildcard spots, and then they swept the AL East leading Yankees to move within 1.5 games of New York. David Price has been stellar in his first two appearances for Toronto. Price is 2-0 with a 0.60 ERA in 15 innings pitchers, and has struck out 15 batters. The addition of Price has bolstered a rotation that already featured R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle pitching like the stars they are.
It’s not just the rotation that has woken up; the bullpen upgrades have also helped tremendously. The Jays’ biggest weaknesses have been fixed and they are playing like an unstoppable juggernaut.
Of course, this invincible behavior will slow down at some point, but the Blue Jays are poised to make a huge push for the post season. Barring major injuries, the Blue Jays could overtake the stumbling Yankees soon and hold the top spot for the rest of the season.
There is still a lot of baseball left and anything can happen, but the Blue Jays were given a lot of help to make a playoff run. Anthopoulos did everything he could to help this team and now it is up to the players to return positive results. So far so good, and hopefully they can keep it up so that Blue Jays fans get the chance to see their team play baseball in October
Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
