First place in AL East is new Blue Jays target even after falling flat in series finale against D’Backs
There are any number of motivational checkpoints in a 162-game season to help contending teams ride the inevitable swings of the odyssey, both high and low.
When three-plus weeks of solid baseball allows you to wake up in late June just two games out of the division lead, that would be one of them.
That was the position the Blue Jays found themselves in prior to a flat Thursday matinee against the Arizona Diamondbacks that resulted in a mostly lopsided and deflating 9-5 loss.
Sure, it wasn’t pretty, but at least the home side took the three-game series 2-1, cooling a team that had arrived on a five-game heater.
Baseball players are generally better equipped at riding out highs and lows than other sports — in part in the name of retaining some sanity, given the length of the season. So dropping a game against the D’Backs shouldn’t destroy momentum, especially with the opportunity presented by a three-game weekend series against the Chicago White Sox, the worst team in the American League, right around the corner.
With the New York Yankees defeating the Angels on Thursday, the Jays slipped to three games in arrears of the division leaders. But with a big four-game home series against the Yankees starting on June 30, for the first time in 2025 the prospect of chasing the division lead has a whiff of believability.
“There is so much season left but, yeah, you look up and want so see where you envision yourself,” manager John Schneider said prior to Thursday’s lopsided affair played out before 33,978 at the open-roofed Rogers Centre. “There’s the wild card, and that’s great, but the goal every year is to try to win the division. A lot (of season) to go but nice to look up and say we’re playing well and where we are in terms of games back.”
