What we learned about Blue Jays during 10-game win streak

While the Toronto Blue Jays did not tie their franchise record win streak on Wednesday afternoon, failures have been few and far between lately.

The team woke up on the morning of June 29 — only 11 days ago — having just suffered a 15-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox and scrapping for position in the wild-card race. Now, a run of 10 straight has put the Blue Jays atop the AL East. 

It’s not hard to understand how the competitive picture has shifted for Toronto due to its run of hot play and a stumble by the New York Yankees — partially at the hands of the Blue Jays themselves.

What’s a little trickier is identifying what this stretch has taught us about this ballclub. There’s no doubt that it’s re-contextualized them a little bit, but at the same time, sometimes a hot streak is purely an anomaly rather than a breakout. 

The Minnesota Twins are the perfect example of that. They rattled off a 13-game winning streak in May, yet they were 13-20 before and have gone 19-27 since. 

It’s unlikely a fate that dire awaits the Blue Jays, but the takeaways from their streak aren’t that they are an unbeatable juggernaut either. Here’s what we’ve learned:

Toronto’s contact ability isn’t just a strength — it’s a differentiator

In recent years, Toronto’s deficiencies from a power standpoint have soured many fans on the value of putting the ball in play. That’s fair considering that while the 2023 and 2024 Blue Jays avoided strikeouts at an admirable rate, their offence didn’t complement that strength with any others.

An elite contact rate in conjunction with some power and patience can be a dangerous thing, though. The difficulty opponents have had striking out Blue Jays is a big part of what makes the team’s lineup feel relentless. It also helps Toronto deliver the occasional small-ball run to supplement the offence.

During the Blue Jays’ win streak, they struck out just 15.8 per cent of the time, with the next-best contact team posting a strikeout rate of 18.8 per cent. Their season-long number (17.4 per cent) is now the lowest MLB has seen since the 2017 Houston Astros.

When you avoid strikeouts, you create more opportunities for yourself while opening the door for your opponents to make mistakes. It’s not enough to base a whole offence on, but it can set you apart as long as there isn’t a massive trade-off that costs you power or the lengthy at-bats that lead to walks.

Since their gloomy April, the Blue Jays’ 79 home runs rank 11th in the majors, and their walk rate (9 per cent) ranks fourth. It doesn’t appear that their strikeout avoidance is costing them much, if anything.

The back end of the bullpen passes a test

Injuries to Nick Sandlin, Yimi García and Ryan Burr mean the Blue Jays bullpen is in flux, but it’s also showing its quality.

Throughout Toronto’s win streak, the team was constantly in close games and got a workmanlike performance from its starters, who posted a 4.15 ERA. The relief corps was often called on in high-leverage spots with minimal room for error. That was particularly true of the team’s current late-game options in Jeff Hoffman, Yariel Rodríguez, Brendon Little, Braydon Fisher and Chad Green, who allowed five earned runs in 24.2 innings, accounting for five wins, five saves and seven holds.

While you could quibble with Green’s inclusion, injuries have put him back into a larger role, and to his credit, he’s conceded just one run in his last 10 outings.

García’s return will be a welcome development for Toronto, and trade-deadline acquisitions will be considered, but the Blue Jays’ most important relievers helped elevate them during their streak, even with Little and Fisher experiencing some wobbles in the Yankees series.

Since Toronto got rolling on June 29, Hoffman has more saves (5) than base runners allowed (3), and his ERA has dropped from 5.13 to 4.46. Green hasn’t allowed a run. Rodríguez has given up just one. The Blue Jays’ win last Saturday belongs to Fisher more than anyone else, as he held the Los Angeles Angels scoreless over two extra-inning frames. Little doesn’t have a specific plaudit to his name, but allowing two runs in six innings is far from a train wreck. 

Even during Toronto’s loss on Wednesday, Fisher, Little, and Rodríguez provided 3.1 innings of scoreless ball with five strikeouts to keep the Blue Jays in it. 

The Blue Jays don’t have the most star-studded bullpen, but it’s getting harder and harder to argue with the results.

Being clutch is important, but counting on it is impossible

The single greatest driving force during Toronto’s streak was the team’s ability to bring home its own runners while keeping opponents stranded.

Considering six of the Blue Jays’ 10 wins came by one or two runs, it’s clear that situational excellence made a colossal difference. It may feel at this moment that the Blue Jays have a particularly grittiness or mental fortitude that allows them to thrive in these critical spots, though Wednesday’s loss where they went 1-for-9 in RISP situations is a solid counterpoint — but there’s no firm evidence behind that idea.

Very occasionally, a player shows a lengthy track record of overperforming in big spots (Bo Bichette is starting to get there, for example), but whole teams are composed of too many parts to consistently demonstrate that characteristic, particularly on both sides of the ball simultaneously.

Before Toronto’s win streak, it was more solid than world-beating in RISP situations, and it’s fair to assume the team won’t be a massive outlier in that way in the months to come.

Teams tend to perform to their talent level across all situations over a large enough sample. The Blue Jays are a good team and should fare well in clutch moments for the rest of the season for that reason. But they can’t be counted on to dominate in those spots.

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