Blue Jays can strive for modest end-of-season goals

Plus the latest MLB Power Rankings with Jays ranked 20

Sep 17, 2024

Let’s get real. The final 12 games of the lost 2024 season for the Blue Jays is not about wins and losses. The final 12 games are all about watching and evaluating an enthusiastic, inexperienced group of individual young players trying to carve out a role for themselves in 2025, whether it’s with this franchise, or another major-league team. The Blue Jays team record after 162 is incidental.

However, for manager John Schneider and the Jays’ front office, there should be one team goal that, on the surface, might seem insignificant, but upon closer examination, would make the off-season slightly more palatable.

Escape the basement in the strongest division in baseball. The stigma of last place seems to be a taunting, finger-pointing theme that the fanbase has used as a constant refrain but that they would not be able to lean on all winter. The Rays are always held up as a role model organization for being able to overcome the reality of a small-market team with a non-supportive fanbase. Passing the Rays would lessen critics’ ability to use that argument all winter. The Jays trail by one game.

If they can pass either the Rays or the Red Sox and not be labelled as “the worst” for the next five months, it’s important. That is straight-forward doable with 12 games remaining. The Jays face the Rays for three in St. Petersburg to wrap up this current road trip, then open the final homestand with a series vs. Boston, followed by a weekend set vs. the 29^th place Marlins (this week power rankings).

John Schneider responds to Jon Heyman social media criticism

As many fans on social media may already be aware, the respected New York Post columnist Jon Heyman came over the top rope at Schneider and his Blue Jays for the way they had played against the Mets, assuming from afar that this had become the culture of the organization. This opinion of what the Jays clubhouse had become, came from Heyman, even though he has not actually witnessed more than a handful of Jays games, other than via highlight packages – and when you are commenting on a team nine games under .500, a team ranked Top 10 in payroll, there is a chance that highlights make you feel you are at least partially correct.

Heyman, who also has a prominent voice on MLBNetwork, originally posted a short, very succinct tweet: “The Blue Jays don’t play the game right, or well.” It was a throwaway line, but the post created 541,000 views and 1,600 likes.

The Jays, at the time, had just lost two of three to the Mets, including the debacle of Bowden Francis carrying a no-hitter into the ninth, before a Francisco Lindor leadoff homer, followed by a bullpen collapse and an eventual 7-2 loss.

Schneider was asked for his reaction to the Tweet this past Saturday morning prior to a game vs. the Cardinals. At the time the Jays were eight games below .500.

“He’s got a lot of followers on Twitter,” the irritated Jays manager began. “He’s never managed and he’s paid to write controversial stuff, but until he’s managed a game, he can write whatever he wants. He doesn’t care a lot for the one team in Canada and he doesn’t understand how teams are built or how they’re operated, these days. I take it with a grain of salt.

“There’s a lot of people who think they can be a manager, who think they can be a GM, who think they can be a pitcher. If they’ve done it, I will listen to those comments. If they haven’t done it, I’ve got enough other shit to deal with.”

Pathetic White Sox key figures in AL Wild-Card

Prior to the 2024 season, the general consensus that among the three AL wild-card qualifiers, two would come from the AL East and one from the West, or perhaps the other way around. However, nobody imagined that two wild-card winners might emerge from the usually mediocre AL Central. That is happening. How?

As of Tuesday morning, the Guardians led the AL Central. The wild-card race was led by the Orioles, but the next three teams were all AL Central – Royals (82-69), Twins (79-71) and Tigers (78-73). So where do the White Sox fit in?

The Chisox are on a record pace for haplessness at 36-115. They are the other team in the AL Central, with a record inside the division of 8-41, meaning that there are +33 wins being divided among the other four squads. Against the South Siders, the five leaders in AL Wild-Card race are a combined 45-5 – O’s 6-1; Royals 12-1; Twins 12-1; Tigers 9-1 and the Mariners 6-1.

Without the Sox, the Twins and Tigers are sub-.500, while the Royals record would be 70-68. Somehow, that does not seem fair to the spirit of October.

NL DOMINATING INTERLEAGUE PLAY

(6 Division Overall Combined Records)

1-AL East +32 … 2-NL West +24…

3-NL Central +15 … 4-NL East +2

5-AL Central minus-30 … 6-AL West minus-43

Griff’s The Pitch

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