TORONTO – In late May when the Toronto Blue Jays arrived in Arlington after a one-sided sweep at the Tampa Bay Rays, manager John Schneider described the upcoming games against the Texas Rangers as “a big test.”
They’d scored just twice during a lost weekend, as they struggled to climb above .500 “because of the ebbs and flows of offence and baserunning,” and were at a point where “you really have to revisit” what they needed to do to succeed. “The way we played in Tampa turned this into a little bit of a bigger series,” Schneider added back then.
Well, the Blue Jays didn’t exactly light it up during those three games at Globe Life Field — scoring only four times during the three games — but still managed to eke out a couple of stabilizing wins, taking the finale 2-0 on Bo Bichette’s pinch-hit homer in the ninth. Their odds of winning the AL East and of reaching the post-season stood at just 3.2 and 29.6 per cent afterwards (per FanGraphs), but they returned home to unload on the Athletics during a four-game sweep, starting a run of 11 wins in 13 outings and haven’t looked back since.
Now, a season is never turned around by a single moment, but with some hindsight, that clash with the Rangers certainly turned out to be a springboard to where the Jays are now.
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Watch Blue Jays vs. Rangers on Sportsnet
The American League-leading Toronto Blue Jays continue their homestand with a three-game series against the Texas Rangers. Watch Game 2 Saturday on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ starting at 3 p.m. ET / noon PT.
“At that point, we had some good moments where we kind of showed ourselves what we could do, but we hadn’t gone on that stretch to validate it. That’s where we were at,” said Bichette. “For me personally, (the homer) was probably like my first real big hit. That one felt significant for me. I feel like this whole year, personally, has just kind of been building blocks towards becoming myself, if not a better version of myself. That was definitely one of them and the team has sort of been on that trajectory, as well, little-by-little finding ourselves again, getting to the point we’ve gotten to. That series is one of those blocks.”
All of which explains why the two teams began this weekend’s return engagement at Rogers Centre in such different spots, the Blue Jays (72-51) now atop the AL East while the Rangers (61-62) are still spinning their wheels while chasing a wild-card spot.
Friday’s opener also played out very differently than the last series between the two, as the Blue Jays used a four-spot in the eighth inning – started by Bichette’s RBI single and highlighted by Alejandro Kirk’s go-ahead two-run base hit – to complete their 39th comeback win of the season, 6-5.
Chris Bassitt fell behind early during a rough second inning in which he surrendered a three-run homer to Kyle Higashioka that opened the scoring and Jacob deGrom, pumping 98 and 99 all night, kept it there over five dominant innings.
Kirk pulled the Blue Jays back into it with a two-run homer off Robert Garcia in the seventh, but Louis Varland gave that back in the eighth when Marcus Semien hammered a flat first-pitch slider over the wall in left for a two-run shot of his own.
But as they have so often this year, they rallied once more, Bichette lining a single off Danny Coloumbe to begin the comeback, followed by Daulton Varsho’s bases-loaded walk and Kirk’s go-ahead knock.
Jeff Hoffman then struck out the side for his 28th save as a boisterous crowd of 42,260 roared in Toronto.
