Toronto Blue Jays @ New York Yankees, July 21-23

[JaysRule15]

I would've brought out Gausman for the 8th, could've saved Yariel, but at least we got the W!

[Randle McMurphy]

Wow. We have the 3rd best winning percentage in all of the mlb right now. That’s crazy.

What’s even crazier is it is with a +29 run differential

There are 4 losing streaks that really dent the run differential:

5 game losing streak - outscored 31-9
3 game losing streak - outscored 26-5
3 game losing streak - outscored 19-2
3 game losing streak - outscored 22-6

So in those 14 games they’re being outscored 98-22.

Yes, I’ve said before that I think they are better than what the current run differential is (the post-Bowden Jays aren’t throwing away 1-2 games a week for no real reason) but it’s an enormous statistical oddity all the same.

There can’t be that many teams ever with this record on this run differential.

[Lateral Quicks]

I credit much of it to a new hitting coach. Under Guillermo, most guys underperformed their career numbers and younger guys stumbled.

Kirk is back to hitting well. Springer is back to hitting well. Bichette has mostly recovered from an abysmal 2024. Barger is breaking out, and we're getting meaningful offensive contributions off the bench from guys like Schneider, Lukes, Clement and Heineman (along with Loperfido and Wagner more recently). The result is a much deeper lineup most nights that wears out pitchers.

Add that to health in the rotation and a league leading defense, and you get this result.

[Mehar]

I credit much of it to a new hitting coach. Under Guillermo, most guys underperformed their career numbers and younger guys stumbled.

Kirk is back to hitting well. Springer is back to hitting well. Bichette has mostly recovered from an abysmal 2024. Barger is breaking out, and we're getting meaningful offensive contributions off the bench from guys like Schneider, Lukes, Clement and Heineman (along with Loperfido and Wagner more recently). The result is a much deeper lineup most nights that wears out pitchers.

Add that to health in the rotation and a league leading defense, and you get this result.

I always believed hitting coaches are a bit overrated, but nobody can deny how this team looks so much better in the box compared to the garbage we saw the past two years under Martinez.

The players like Springer and Clement, are also crediting Popkins also for the way they approach things differently while hitting. So, credit to this organization for getting an outstanding guy like Popkins from Minnesota. It is night and day watching this team, from the one the past two years.

[-MetA4-]

There can’t be that many teams ever with this record on this run differential.

The 2022 Padres were 89-73 with a +45 run differential.

Regardless, this year's Yankees team exposes the obvious flaw in run differential noise. They have an exorbitant number of blowout wins which pad their run differential, but as you can clearly see against an actual good team like the Jays: it doesn't mean ****.

[Randle McMurphy]

There can’t be that many teams ever with this record on this run differential.

The 2022 Padres were 89-73 with a +45 run differential.

So not as good a record or as bad a run diffential. I’m looking for a team that is 18 games over .500 that is under +30.

Regardless, this year's Yankees team exposes the obvious flaw in run differential noise. They have an exorbitant number of blowout wins which pad their run differential, but as you can clearly see against an actual good team like the Jays: it doesn't mean ****.

That’s an extremely simplistic way of looking at it and ignores the complete randomness of a small sample in baseball.

It’s like saying the 2015 Jays weren’t the best team in baseball that year because they blew a ton of teams out and happened to lose a short series to the Royals. Ridiculous.

[Randle McMurphy]

What happens if Stanton’s line drive in the 8th (which had an xBA of .850) isn’t directly hit at Straw and instead goes in the gap and the Yankees go on to win the game? Does run differential matter then?

Baseball is just random as hell and luck is as big a part of the equation as any sport there is. It’s sort of part of the allure of it really.

[Boogie!]

I credit much of it to a new hitting coach. Under Guillermo, most guys underperformed their career numbers and younger guys stumbled.

Kirk is back to hitting well. Springer is back to hitting well. Bichette has mostly recovered from an abysmal 2024. Barger is breaking out, and we're getting meaningful offensive contributions off the bench from guys like Schneider, Lukes, Clement and Heineman (along with Loperfido and Wagner more recently). The result is a much deeper lineup most nights that wears out pitchers.

Add that to health in the rotation and a league leading defense, and you get this result.

What about Guerrero

Btw, he does have more walks than strikeouts for the first time in his career. Hopefully he sustains that. If he showed more power he’d be like Juan Soto.

[-MetA4-]

So not as good a record or as bad a run diffential. I’m looking for a team that is 18 games over .500 that is under +30.

Except that you conveniently forget that the Jays were something like -40 (or worse) at one point this season, which means that their ~+70 run differential since then correlates entirely to when they started winning games. So there is nothing "weird" about their run differential: they have been increasing it week after week after week in direct correlation to their record. Their run differential is clearly on pace to finish well over +50. This may not sound impressive, but most teams that post a +100 run differential weren't in a -40 hole at any point in the season.

The poster you responded to explained the run differential to you: they had a stretch of unbelievably bad losses at a non-pivotal point of the season. Nobody gives a **** if your team was hopeless in April and couldn't score or prevent runs from scoring. What the Jays are actually proving is that peaking at the right time is infinitely more important than winning blowout games in April.

It’s like saying the 2015 Jays weren’t the best team in baseball that year because they blew a ton of teams out and happened to lose a short series to the Royals. Ridiculous.

Sure thing LOL. Except that people have already done a deep dive on this Yankees team and their supposedly elite run differential, and found the following: they have an irregular number of wins with massive run differentials. So they are extremely proficient in kicking the absolute **** out of opponents who are down and out in games that are long over, but unfortunately this doesn't translate at all in tough, close baseball games. Their run differential doesn't even match with what anyone with a working pair of eyes sees on the field: their defense isn't even good, and their bullpen is super average. Their offense has a few bats, but its really just Judge inflating everything. They have a ton of leaky holes.

20-9 W vs. MIL
12-3 W vs. MIL
11-2 W vs. TOR
15-3 W vs. BAL
12-3 W vs. SD
10-2 W vs. OAK
12-2 W vs. OAK
13-1 W vs. COL
10-2 W vs. KC
9-0 W vs. BAL

This is a 10 game sample of their wins this season wherein they scored 124 runs and conceded 27 runs.

That is a +97 run differential in that one 10-game sample alone. Their total run differential on the season is +109 LMFAO.

So yes Randle, it is indeed absolutely "ridiculous". 89% of their accumulated run differential on the entire season came from 10 wins LOL.

[Randle McMurphy]

Except that you conveniently forget out that the Jays were something like -40 (or worse) at one point this season, which means that their ~+70 run differential since then correlates entirely to when they started winning games. So there is nothing "weird" about their run differential: they have been increasing it week after week after week in direct correlation to their record. Their run differential is clearly on pace to finish well over +50. This may not sound impressive, but most teams that post a +100 run differential weren't in a -40 hole at any point in the season.

The poster you responded to explained the run differential to you: they had a stretch of unbelievably bad losses at a non-pivotal point of the season. Nobody gives a **** if your team was hopeless in April and couldn't score or prevent runs from scoring. What the Jays are actually proving is that peaking at the right time is infinitely more important than winning blowout games in April.

Sure thing LOL. Except that people have already done a deep dive on this Yankees team and their supposedly elite run differential, and found the following: they have an irregular number of wins with massive run differentials. So they are extremely proficient in kicking the absolute **** out of opponents who are down and out in games that are long over, but unfortunately this doesn't translate at all in tough, close baseball games. Their run differential doesn't even match with what anyone with a working pair of eyes sees on the field: their defense isn't even good, and their bullpen is super average. Their offense has a few bats, but its really just Judge inflating everything. They have a ton of leaky holes.

20-9 W vs. MIL
12-3 W vs. MIL
11-2 W vs. TOR
15-3 W vs. BAL
12-3 W vs. SD
10-2 W vs. OAK
12-2 W vs. OAK
13-1 W vs. COL
10-2 W vs. KC
9-0 W vs. BAL

This is a 10 game sample of their wins this season wherein they scored 124 runs and conceded 27 runs.

That is a +97 run differential in that one 10-game sample alone. Their total run differential on the season is +109 LMFAO.

So yes Randle, it is indeed absolutely "ridiculous". 89% of their accumulated run differential on the entire season came from 10 wins LOL.

Your argument doesn't make any sense whatsoever. You can't just ignore or downplay 10 of the best games the Yankees played all season because they blew those teams out. It's part of who and what they are (a very good offensive team). And there's no basis whatsoever to say that their brand of baseball doesn't translate in "tough, close baseball games." I could just say as easily say the Jays are complete luck merchants in close games and it would have just as much of a basis in reality.

And saying their offense has a few bats LOL, bit of an understatement there. They have 6 hitters with a wRC+ over 120 on the season (Judge, Stanton, Jazz, Bellinger, Grisham, Bellinger, Rice) and two others who are above average (Dominguez and Goldschmidt). I suppose we shouldn't count a lot of that because it came against bad pitching, though, right? We should probably take away all of Judge's HRs in blowouts too. Those don't reflect actual quality on his part either.

[Randle McMurphy]

Please tell us more next about how the 2015 Blue Jays weren't that good because they blew teams out with regularity to get that +221 RD.

[Fairview4Life]

Please tell us more next about how the 2015 Blue Jays weren't that good because they blew teams out with regularity. :lol:

The point was that the Yankees apparently don’t blow people out with regularity. Their season’s run differential is almost entirely due to a 10 game sample. Or when they do blow people out it’s by a huge margin, while the rest of their games are fairly close. Basically, judging the Jays harshly or the Yankees well based on strictly their run differential, might not be telling you all that much.

[Randle McMurphy]

Please tell us more next about how the 2015 Blue Jays weren't that good because they blew teams out with regularity.

The point was that the Yankees apparently don’t blow people out with regularity. Their season’s run differential is almost entirely due to a 10 game sample. The 2015 Jays had like 30-35 games they won by at least 6 runs or something like that.

Except it proves exactly that; that they do blow teams out with regularity. They've gone +97 in their 10 best games and we're not even 2/3 of the way through the season. That's a good thing.

These were the Jays' 10 best games from a run differential perspective in 2015.
15-1 (+14)
15-2 (+13)
15-3 (+12)
12-2 (+10)
11-2 (+9)
13-5 (+8)
11-3 (+8)
8-0 (+8)
10-2 (+8)
12-4 (+8)
+98

Almost no different than the 2025 Yankees who were +97 in their best 10 games.

This is simply what great teams do. They beat up on their opposition. You can't penalize them for it or pretend those games never happened or somehow mean less because they happened in blowouts. You also can't say that their style of baseball (which is apparently having the best offense in the league) doesn't translate against good teams because they got swept in a July series to the Jays.

It's an absurd argument and one that doesn't even make sense from a Jays fan perspective (why are we trying to downplay how good the Yankees might be when we have owned them thus far this season? Isn't that a good thing?).

[Asianiac_24]

Fluky or not, never in my wildest dreams would I think we would be 4 games ahead of the Yankees as the top seed in the AL East, and almost all our guys except Santander/Francis have played at or beyond their expected level.

[billy_hoyle]

Please tell us more next about how the 2015 Blue Jays weren't that good because they blew teams out with regularity.

The point was that the Yankees apparently don’t blow people out with regularity. Their season’s run differential is almost entirely due to a 10 game sample. The 2015 Jays had like 30-35 games they won by at least 6 runs or something like that.

Except it proves exactly that; that they do blow teams out with regularity. They've gone +97 in their 10 best games and we're not even 2/3 of the way through the season. That's a good thing.

These were the Jays' 10 best games from a run differential perspective in 2015.
15-1 (+14)
15-2 (+13)
15-3 (+12)
12-2 (+10)
11-2 (+9)
13-5 (+8)
11-3 (+8)
8-0 (+8)
10-2 (+8)
12-4 (+8)
+98

Almost no different than the 2025 Yankees who were +97 in their best 10 games.

This is simply what great teams do. They beat up on their opposition. You can't penalize them for it or pretend those games never happened or somehow mean less because they happened in blowouts. You also can't say that their style of baseball (which is apparently having the best offense in the league) doesn't translate against good teams because they got swept in a July series to the Jays.

It's an absurd argument and one that doesn't even make sense from a Jays fan perspective (why are we trying to downplay how good the Yankees might be when we have owned them thus far this season? Isn't that a good thing?).

Did you just use the Jays full season (from the +221 2015) to come to that number vs the 100 games for the Yankees this season?

Isn't that exactly the point everyone else is making?

Or were you using the Blue Jays top 10 run diff games from their first 100-ish games from 2015?

Consider me confused by what you are arguing if its the former.

[Mehar]

Fluky or not, never in my wildest dreams would I think we would be 4 games ahead of the Yankees as the top seed in the AL East, and almost all our guys except Santander/Francis have played at or beyond their expected level.

You forgot to mention Andres Gimenez, who was injured for one month earlier in the year, and looking at close to a month again now when he is back again hopefully in ten days or so.

Scherzer has been hurt for the first three months also. So, to be 4 games ahead at this point without any major contributions from your big money guys like Santander, Gimenez, and Scherzer, is something nobody would have predicted.

[Randle McMurphy]

Did you just use the Jays full season (from the +221 2015) to come to that number vs the 100 games for the Yankees this season?

Isn't that exactly the point everyone else is making?

Or were you using the Blue Jays top 10 run diff games from their first 100-ish games from 2015?

I was using the top 10 games from the Jays 2015 season which were just about identical to the Yankees’ top 10 games this season thus far to show that, yes, beating up opponents to that extent isn’t unusual for a very good team (which both the 2015 Jays were and the 2025 Yankees are).

The fact the Yankees have blown out teams often this season is an extremely positive thing (and indicative of a strong team), not a negative thing and trying to suggest it isn’t incredibly specious. If anything, that the Yankees have been doing that only 2/3 into the season is even more impressive.

And I have no real idea what point anybody else is making because nothing about what anybody else is arguing about the Yankees here makes any sense. Run differential is an important indicator of team strength (run scoring and run prevention is sort of the entire game) and it is statically far more predictive than a team’s actual record on how a team will perform going forward. The fact that NYY are adept at blowing teams out also doesn’t mean they are somehow bad at winning close games or fatally flawed against good teams (and if they’re fatally flawed, what does that make the Jays who have a decidedly worse offense than them?)

In summary: The Yankees have a very good run differential this year, which both suggests that they are a good team and that they will continue to be one going forward. Trying to argue differently because they blew teams out a lot (which, again, is a good thing!) goes against literally everything we understand about baseball.

[billy_hoyle]

Did you just use the Jays full season (from the +221 2015) to come to that number vs the 100 games for the Yankees this season?

Isn't that exactly the point everyone else is making?

Or were you using the Blue Jays top 10 run diff games from their first 100-ish games from 2015?

I was using the top 10 games from the Jays 2015 season which were just about identical to the Yankees’ top 10 games this season thus far to show that, yes, beating up opponents to that extent isn’t unusual for a very good team (which both the 2015 Jays were and the 2025 Yankees are).

The fact the Yankees have blown out teams often this season is an extremely positive thing (and indicative of a strong team), not a negative thing and trying to suggest it isn’t incredibly specious. If anything, that the Yankees have been doing that only 2/3 into the season is even more impressive.

And I have no real idea what point anybody else is making because nothing about what anybody else is arguing about the Yankees here makes any sense. Run differential is an important indicator of team strength (run scoring and run prevention is sort of the entire game) and it is statically far more predictive than a team’s actual record on how a team will perform going forward. The fact that NYY are adept at blowing teams out also doesn’t mean they are somehow bad at winning close games or fatally flawed against good teams (and if they’re fatally flawed, what does that make the Jays who have a decidedly worse offense than them?)

In summary: The Yankees have a very good run differential this year, which both suggests that they are a good team and that they will continue to be one going forward. Trying to argue differently because they blew teams out a lot (which, again, is a good thing!) goes against literally everything we understand about baseball.

You are reading things at a surface level.

The Blue Jays of 2015 blew out teams, 10 of which over a full season was roughly equivalent to the Yankees 10 best in 2/3rds of a season. The rub is that the Jays also beat teams by a typical distribution (some by only a run or two, and some by a few runs) these middling wins added another +100 runs to their differential. Those wins are missing for the Yankees. What does that say about their team?

You seem to think blow outs are the only thing that matters and their inability to win close-ish games is the anomaly. Others are postulating the opposite, that the Yankees aren't really good, since they can't win close games, and their blowouts are the anomaly.

[WuTang_OG]

Read on Twitter

?s=46&t=0YpMScWXY2zRUqR8fH-usg

[Madvillainy2004]

Idc about Pythag wins or run differential go all in on this team they got voodoo magic lmao I apologize Gaus he ended up with an elite start in the end. Most fun team since 2015.