Toronto Blue Jays vs. Tampa Bay (Devil...cause they are the devil) Rays

[EJaggit]

Guys I'm really scared.... Are we going to make the playoffs or are we gonna succumb to our cold streak right through the end?

[Geddy]

As bad as they have been they are only 2 games out of first, and the Red Sox and Orioles have gone on cold streaks themselves throughout this season. This season will probably come down to that final weekend series against Boston.

[RaptorMan33]

I questioned Wilner on that tweet mentioning the Jays lost 6 to start September followed by a 12-1 streak. He says sure and no one saw that coming for that team. It's false to keep equating it to anything positive. What about a team that starts a losing streak and keeps losing, do we just dismiss that?

That team in 93 never had a month under .500 and the 6 game losing streak was way more of an anomaly than this team struggling at a variety of times this season and now going in to this funk.

The Cubs are going to win close to 105 games this season and they went 12-14 in July.

Kansas City went 11-17 in September last year on their way to winning the series.

This is baseball where even the best teams have bad streaks. No doubt the timing sucks but bad streaks don't last forever.

I wouldn't really call this a bad streak. We have been playing sub .500 baseball since August 1st. Not the mention the fact that the bulk of our wins have not been very impressive. If this was just a bad 15 days, I'd be okay with that. However, our 'suckiness' has been growing for a long, long time.

[Schad]

I wouldn't really call this a bad streak. We have been playing sub .500 baseball since August 1st. Not the mention the fact that the bulk of our wins have not been very impressive. If this was just a bad 15 days, I'd be okay with that. However, our 'suckiness' has been growing for a long, long time.

We were 16-11 in August; it really is just a very bad 15 days.

[The_Hater]

I questioned Wilner on that tweet mentioning the Jays lost 6 to start September followed by a 12-1 streak. He says sure and no one saw that coming for that team. It's false to keep equating it to anything positive. What about a team that starts a losing streak and keeps losing, do we just dismiss that?

That team in 93 never had a month under .500 and the 6 game losing streak was way more of an anomaly than this team struggling at a variety of times this season and now going in to this funk.

The Cubs are going to win close to 105 games this season and they went 12-14 in July.

Kansas City went 11-17 in September last year on their way to winning the series.

This is baseball where even the best teams have bad streaks. No doubt the timing sucks but bad streaks don't last forever.

I wouldn't really call this a bad streak. We have been playing sub .500 baseball since August 1st. Not the mention the fact that the bulk of our wins have not been very impressive. If this was just a bad 15 days, I'd be okay with that. However, our 'suckiness' has been growing for a long, long time.

The Jays were 17-11 in August and went from 3rd place to first in the division.

[Raps_Swingman]

I wouldn't really call this a bad streak. We have been playing sub .500 baseball since August 1st. Not the mention the fact that the bulk of our wins have not been very impressive. If this was just a bad 15 days, I'd be okay with that. However, our 'suckiness' has been growing for a long, long time.

We were 16-11 in August; it really is just a very bad 15 days.

August wasn't bad at all, especially finishing the month smacking the Twins around and then taking 2 of 3 from Baltimore. But then came the Trop, that dog **** shell of a ballpark that makes the Jays look like a bunch of minor leaguers.

People remember what's recent and we won 1 game of our first 7 in September, that's not very good. 3-9 for the month so far. 17 games to go:

4 @ the Angels - 3 W's
3 @ Mariners - 2 W's
4 home Yankees - 3 W's
3 home O's - 2 W's
3 @ Red Sox - 2 W's

That's 12 wins(winning each series) to put us at 15-14 for the month and a total of 91 wins. Will be an interesting finish or a terrible one, depending on how this West coast swing goes.

[The_Hater]

It's an anomaly that we can't score runs. I don't think everybody forgot how to hit all of a sudden.

The bullpen has been bad though, as well as the usage of the bullpen. We need to stop using Cecil for one or two batters per game. We have to lean on him and give fewer important innings to our september call-ups and scrubs. I don't want to see the ball in Ryan Tepera's hands, or Feldman, when it matters. I don't care what hand they throw with, Cecil is simply a better option than them. We need to use our top relievers as much as often in close games.

It's not as much of an anomaly as people are making it out to be though, this team has been bad at hitting for most of the season. They were bad in April and May and they're still 26th in hitting since the all star break. The problem is when our starting pitching isn't outstanding it's way more noticeable.

For example, at the beginning of August the Jays scored 10 runs over the span of 4 games vs Houston and broke a record for most strikeouts in a series. But they won 3 of 4 games and no one cared about the hitting. If they did that now with the starting pitching we've been getting, they would lose those games and everyone would be up in arms about how bad the offence was.

I'm not sure what 4 games in August and team batting average have to do with the team's ability to score runs over the entire season. The Jays offense has hovered between 2nd and 4th in runs scored all season. If thats struggling on offense, wait until next year.

[Raptor_Guy]

It's an anomaly that we can't score runs. I don't think everybody forgot how to hit all of a sudden.

The bullpen has been bad though, as well as the usage of the bullpen. We need to stop using Cecil for one or two batters per game. We have to lean on him and give fewer important innings to our september call-ups and scrubs. I don't want to see the ball in Ryan Tepera's hands, or Feldman, when it matters. I don't care what hand they throw with, Cecil is simply a better option than them. We need to use our top relievers as much as often in close games.

It's not as much of an anomaly as people are making it out to be though, this team has been bad at hitting for most of the season. They were bad in April and May and they're still 26th in hitting since the all star break. The problem is when our starting pitching isn't outstanding it's way more noticeable.

For example, at the beginning of August the Jays scored 10 runs over the span of 4 games vs Houston and broke a record for most strikeouts in a series. But they won 3 of 4 games and no one cared about the hitting. If they did that now with the starting pitching we've been getting, they would lose those games and everyone would be up in arms about how bad the offence was.

I'm not sure what 4 games in August and team batting average have to do with the team's ability to score runs over the entire season. The Jays offense has hovered between 2nd and 4th in runs scored all season. If thats struggling on offense, wait until next year.

Wouldn't quite say 2nd and 4th:

April: 6th in runs
May: 9th in runs
August: 7th in runs
September: Last

Obviously they've been horrible lately but my point is they've had other bad offensive stretches but still managed to win games with pitching. It's just way more noticeable now that the pitching is faltering.

[The_Hater]

It's not as much of an anomaly as people are making it out to be though, this team has been bad at hitting for most of the season. They were bad in April and May and they're still 26th in hitting since the all star break. The problem is when our starting pitching isn't outstanding it's way more noticeable.

For example, at the beginning of August the Jays scored 10 runs over the span of 4 games vs Houston and broke a record for most strikeouts in a series. But they won 3 of 4 games and no one cared about the hitting. If they did that now with the starting pitching we've been getting, they would lose those games and everyone would be up in arms about how bad the offence was.

I'm not sure what 4 games in August and team batting average have to do with the team's ability to score runs over the entire season. The Jays offense has hovered between 2nd and 4th in runs scored all season. If thats struggling on offense, wait until next year.

Wouldn't quite say 2nd and 4th:

April: 6th in runs
May: 9th in runs
August: 7th in runs
September: Last

Obviously they've been horrible lately but my point is they've had other bad offensive stretches but still managed to win games with pitching. It's just way more noticeable now that the pitching is faltering.

Again you're just cherry picking the bad while ignoring the overall picture. That's not a balanced argument. The offense over the course of the season has been quite good, hence the reason why they're among the league leaders In runs scored. Not as great as last season but still very good. Every team has good and bad periods and the Jays aren't amune to that. Right now every facet for the team is struggling, not just the Offense.

The Red Sox have the best offense in the league and one of the best of all time yet were shut out by the Orioles last night. Can we talk about his terrible their offense is right now?

[Skin Blues]

wRC+ by month (100 is league average)

April: 90
May: 96
June: 122
July: 109
August: 104
September: 70

xFIP / ERA by month

April: 4.21 / 3.89
May: 4.20 / 3.44
June: 4.07 / 4.67
July: 3.71 / 3.37
August: 3.77 / 3.63
September: 4.29 / 6.12

Yeah, it's a fluke. The offense isn't this bad, and our pitching isn't this bad. Obviously it would help to get the MVP back in the lineup. And our ERA is ridiculously higher than our xFIP in September which sucks, but is not a bad sign for things to come. We should be allowing 4 runs per game and scoring around 4.8 run per game. It's still pretty much exactly the same team we were before. Estrada started out with tons of luck and that has leveled out. He simply isn't as good as people thought he was. Neither is Happ. But as over their head as they've pitched, Stroman has had worse outcomes than he deserves. It'll balance out. It's still the second best team ERA in the league overall, despite the struggles the past couple weeks.