Kirk LaPointe: As playoffs begin, the limping, grinding Blue Jays are the American League team to beat

It can take until the 18th hole to sink that great putt, until the final seconds on the clock to make the decisive three-pointer, or until the goalie is pulled in the last minute to avert the loss. Sport is about uncomfortably waiting for the script’s pressure and suspense to yield an outcome. So it should not surprise anyone that it took all 162 games of the season for the Toronto Blue Jays to seal the deal in baseball’s toughest division, the American League East. It wasn’t even supposed to happen, even if, in great relief today, it feels like it was meant to be. Last spring, oddsmakers would have projected that this week the manager, general manager, and perhaps even the team president would be looking for work. Most everyone expected a feeble season would be followed by a formidable dismantling of a flatlined franchise. Think back to May 27, when the team was predictably mired in mediocrity, eight games out of first place with a 26-28 record. Since that walk-off win on a Bo Bichette home run, with improbable contributions from all corners of the coming-and-going roster, it has gone 68-40 and been in first place since July 2. The Jays’ style of play has been more grinding than graceful. It is neither reminiscent of its historic long-ball dominance nor blessed by a supreme starting rotation. Rather, it is a team that led the major league in hits, with a league-best batting average and on-base percentage, the lowest team strike-out rate in baseball this century, and a gaggle of players with an above-average OPS+, the favourite sabermetric that looks at on-base percentage, slugging, and adjusts the performance for the park and league. In simpler terms, they get plenty of timely hits with runners on base to mask the maddening grounders into double plays (132, leading the majors) to extinguish rallies. In pummeling Tampa Bay 13-4 on Sunday (its league-leading 48th comeback victory) for its fourth-straight win, the Jays took their first division title in a decade, the first time it did so in front of its hometown fans since 1992. (The team actually tied the New York Yankees in the standings, but won the tiebreaking edge in head-to-head play.) The sensational second-half surge etched them as the American League’s regular season top seed, which will provide the Jays with critical home-field advantage at Rogers Centre for at least the first two playoff rounds—sweet, because the team has played far, far better at home, the best of any AL rival. Of course, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves in assuming there will be rounds and not just one. The Jays haven’t won any playoff game they’ve been in since 2016. And it is fair to say the last month, save the division-salvaging final four games, hasn’t been the finest showcase. The face of the franchise, newly minted half-billionaire Vladimir Guerrero Jr., hasn’t homered in 20 games. The second face of the franchise, Bo Bichette, has a sprained knee that has sidelined him (and nearly the team’s playoff fate) for weeks, and he may not return soon. The marquee free agent signing, Anthony Santander, has been an utter bust when he hasn’t been injured in his first year. The marquee off-season trade acquisition, Andres Gimenez, has been overmatched at the plate. The game seems to have caught up to starter Jose Berrios this year. Future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer, once he overcame injury, couldn’t muster a consistent pitching run. The bullpen overall finished the season strong, but the jury is out on closer Jeff Hoffman, who toggles between brilliant and brutal. Entering Saturday, catcher Alejandro Kirk had gone five-for-50 at bat—although he caught his snap, homered once that day and twice Sunday, including his heroic first-ever career grand slam, so let’s hope that bodes well. Then again, you can’t be 94-68 and see the glass as half-empty, even as a tormented fan. The team’s MVP this season has been George Springer, who hit more than .300 for the first time, had the major league’s fourth-highest OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage), and hit 32 home runs in his age-36 season. He, Bichette, and Kirk have had resurgent years, while mostly injured Daulton Varsho hit an exceptional 20 home runs in a mere 248 at-bats. Rookie Addison Barger, who looks like he could hit a home run with his bare arm, clubbed 21. Two pitching rookies, Brayden Fisher and Mason Fluharty, filled some injury breaches well. Rental pitcher Shane Bieber, a former Cy Young winner recovering from surgery and acquired at the trade deadline, will be pivotal in the playoffs. And the most extraordinary find of all is Trey Yesavage, who this season alone rose through the ranks of four separate minor leagues he dominated to enter the bigs in September, and is the team’s most intriguing pitching phenom. In its 49 years, the Jays own seven divisional titles and two World Series—back-to-back championships in 1992 and 1993, the last year a Canadian team also won the Stanley Cup. Sunday’s win earned them a week to shake the celebratory hangover; they will play either New York or the Boston Red Sox starting Saturday in a best-of-five. The season’s final weeks, days, and even minutes made for an outrageous comebacks and collapses across baseball. Five 162s mattered Sunday. The New York Mets had the best record in baseball June 12, but missed the playoffs by losing Sunday; the Cincinnati Reds were largely written off, but backed into the playoffs Sunday in their stead. Until Sunday, the Houston Astros had incredibly only played four regular season games since 2015 in which they weren’t in a playoff position—they collapsed in the final few days and will sit out. The Detroit Tigers had a 15-and-a-half game lead July 5 and a nine-and-a-half game lead Sept. 11, only to lose the AL Central on the final day to the Cleveland Guardians, who overcame the largest deficit in the standings to win a division since 1969. (Detroit eked out a wild-card spot, but has to face Cleveland now.) And then, there were the Jays and Yankees, waiting for the other team to lose. The Jays had a five-game lead with 11 games to go, but their bats went cold in losing six of the next seven games, and in the space of a week, the Yankees erased the advantage. Tampa Bay has been Toronto’s kryptonite, but the Jays somehow swept their season-ending series against them and held off the Yankees, which enters the playoffs as imposing winners of eight straight—giants ready to be felled, one hopes. The Yankees aren’t necessarily the team to fear most, though. In the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers wound up as baseball’s best, largely unnoticeably, and they play small-ball underscored by defence and base-stealing, with a deeper lineup of kids and retreads. Its starting rotation (Freddy Peralta is the league’s best) features the game’s hardest (if not most accurate) thrower, Jacob Misiorowski. Los Angeles and Philadelphia are also stacked with stars. I’d say the Blue Jays can make it through the American League, though.