{"id":24609,"date":"2019-09-01T19:52:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T23:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=24609"},"modified":"2019-09-01T19:52:11","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T23:52:11","slug":"toronto-blue-jays-eliminated-from-postseason-contention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/09\/01\/toronto-blue-jays-eliminated-from-postseason-contention\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Blue Jays Eliminated from Postseason Contention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/toronto-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> are mathematically eliminated from the Postseason following a 2-0 loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/houston-astros\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Houston Astros<\/a> and a win by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/tampa-bay-rays\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tampa Bay Rays<\/a>. Also, on the day that the Jays were eliminated, they were <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2019\/09\/01\/houston-astros-justin-verlander-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">no-hit<\/a> by Astros ace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/verlaju01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Verlander<\/a>. With a record of 55-83, it comes as no surprise that the Blue Jays have been eliminated this early. Considering this team is on pace for their worst season in nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/2019\/05\/25\/cavan-biggio-toronto-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">four decades,<\/a> it has shown that the days of contention are far behind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The Rebuild<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While fans got a glimpse of the future core, there are plenty of reasons for this team to be exciting and competitive for years to come. Despite the team being last in the majors in batting average, the offense doesn\u2019t seem too bad. The concern for the future is their pitching. As the team lacks pitching, it is likely that the Blue Jays will have prospects such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=pearso000nat&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nate Pearson<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=murphy015pat,murphy011pat&amp;search=Patrick+Murphy&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patrick Murphy<\/a> join the team soon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a positive sentiment towards the rebuild, it&#8217;s unlikely that there will be any changes to the front office in the off-season. It&#8217;s likely that Shapiro, Atkins, and Montoyo are all in the organization next season. Montoyo has shown that he is willing to make adjustments, but unfortunately did not have the caliber of team to compete in the AL East..\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>What now?<\/h3>\n<p>The Blue Jays are in an awkward spot. On one hand they are not contending like the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/mlb-teams\/new-york-yankees\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Yankees<\/a> or Rays. But, are not so bad where they are within reach of the 1st overall pick. Fans can only hope the team is in a good direction.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While it&#8217;s unlikely for the Blue Jays to be contenders in the 2020 season, the fans have to be patient with the rebuild. Especially considering some players may have a \u201csophomore slump.\u201d The future looks bright in Toronto, despite the present being filled with mediocrity. Patience is key if this team will ever go back to a World Series. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"GGXUzMrKRVZXhUAI9n0cng\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1165230266\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'GGXUzMrKRVZXhUAI9n0cng',sig:'8NVXBQQiLuPwyG-W5tnceId6dgY1yIQyWftCIJJw8R0=',w:'594px',h:'402px',items:'1165230266',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Blue Jays are mathematically eliminated from the Postseason following a 2-0 loss to the Houston Astros and a win by the Tampa Bay Rays. Also, on the day that the Jays were eliminated, they were no-hit by Astros ace Justin Verlander. With a record of 55-83, it comes as no surprise that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3158,"featured_media":24647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1608,2640,2463,3078,496],"class_list":["post-24609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejays","tag-bo-bichette","tag-cavan-biggio","tag-charlie-montoyo","tag-mark-shapairo","tag-ross-atkins"],"modified_by":"Aaron Cornett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}