duppyy wrote:
Jays had a 10 game win streak earlier in the year, one last year and the year before. We usually go back to sucking after a win streak.
At the end of the day, it still comes down to quantity of quality talent. Over a long baseball season sometimes players get hot or overachieve for a while which causes big win streaks, but the truly great talents don't cool off as much once they aren't "hot". In the past, hot streaks were driven usually by things like bad pitchers pitching well for a few weeks (that streak in 2013 when guys like Josh Johnson were pitching well for a few weeks), or mediocre hitters hitting insanely well (Colabello's 18 game hit streak), or very good hitters mashing at a legendary level (EE last year in May). These are all unsustainable things.
We know our main hitters are good. They will slump but you know they'll start knocking around dingers again before long. What you must ask during this streak is what we are doing that isn't sustainable or is bound to fall down after a while.
2 things in my mind to look at most during this streak: Donaldson eventually cooling off, and 2 of the starting pitchers (Estrada and Dickey) who have been pitching better than average lately. We know Donaldson is good, so he'll recover from a slump, so we must ask how much more are Estrada and Dickey overachieving above their regular norm. I feel like Dickey is up and down in general so the guy who's overachieving most is probably Estrada. Will he fall down eventually, or is he having a simply great year?
Other than those 2 factors, I feel everything else is basically normal with the Jays. The defense is certifiably better without Jose Reyes, and I think the bullpen is legit now with Hawkins and Lowe on board.
I feel like having Tulo who can actually catch and throw unlike Reyes (I swear it seemed like Reyes cost us about a run a game with his bobbled grounders and his throwing range basically limited to about 10 feet) and the bullpen being solidified have been the biggest difference makers so far in this streak.
