Real or mirage: What to make of the Jays on a heater

A decade ago, the story of the most exciting Toronto Blue Jays team in recent memory was one in which the standings lied.

That team was 50-51 on July 28, fourth in the AL East.

But those Jays also had a plus-94 run differential. They won a lot of their games convincingly and lost a lot of close ones. That's why then-GM Alex Anthopoulos bet on his team, trading for Troy Tulowitzki and David Price and kicking off a run to the ALCS.

It's one of the fundamental tenets of the analytics age: don't look at win-loss records, which can be skewed by the inherent randomness of individual games. Look at overall run creation and run prevention, which are better indicators of a team's talent and ability relative to its peers.

Which is why the 2025 Blue Jays are kind of hard to figure out.

The Jays are on a heater. A home loss to the Angels on May 7 left them 16-20 and with a very familiar problem: they had a lineup full of guys swinging wet noodles. They've since ripped off a 22-10 run that's included five consecutive series victories, capped with a sweep in St. Louis of a decent Cardinals team.

That leaves them heading into a weekend series in Philadelphia with a 38-30 record, four games back of the Yankees, who at one point looked like they might put the AL East to bed by the end of June. Toronto's holding down a wild-card playoff spot and has about a two-thirds chance of making the postseason, depending on the projection system. Ross Atkins, genius?

But about that run differential. Even with the hot May and June (so far), Toronto's scored four more runs than it's given up. Until the last two wins over the Cardinals, Toronto's run differential stood at a perfectly zen zero. The Rays, two games back in the standings, have a plus-47 run differential. The Red Sox, five games back of the Jays, have scored 18 more runs than they've surrendered.

So, is this Jays performance sustainable? Is it a mirage? This is usually the point at which a column like this takes a strong position, but this one's a tough call.

Consider first the evidence in favor of sustainability. The offense, dormant for most of last year, is, er, popping under new hitting coach David Popkins. The same team that hit a meek 19 home runs in March and April had 38 of them in May, and another 13 in just 10 June games. A middling .656 team OPS in the season's first month has ballooned into a .885 mark over the last two weeks.

And where Vladimir Guerrero Jr. last season often seemed like the only guy on the team who could hit, this year he's been good, but far from overwhelming. The Toronto offense has been keyed by a couple of resurrections (George Springer, Alejandro Kirk) and surprising contributions from guys like Ernie Clement, Addison Barger, and Nathan Lukes.

Toronto can't even claim to have had good injury luck, with Daulton Varsho missing more than half of the season, Max Scherzer contributing three innings so far, and Anthony Santander injured after a desperately slow start to his Jays career.

The Jays have gotten solid starts from the veteran pitching trio of José Berríos, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt, but that is, readers will note, just three guys. Bowden Francis would have pitched himself out of the rotation by this point if manager John Schneider had a better option available. If any of the three stalwarts, all of whom are in their 30s, misses extended time, that would be daunting to overcome. No one doubts Scherzer's desire at this point in his career, but he's 40 years old and has pitched all of 46 innings since the end of the 2023 season.

But perhaps the best indicator of the curious nature of the Jays' season so far - is the glass half full or half empty? - is that the players themselves don't entirely have a great explanation for it.

"It just feels so much different," Clement told reporters after the latest win in St. Louis. "It's just, it's fun showing up to the ballpark."

Bassitt said: "We're just playing great baseball when it comes to being very selfless, playing for each other, working hard for each other, and talking about baseball."

That sounds a lot like the Toronto upswing is based on … vibes? A better attitude in the clubhouse isn't usually what causes a poor offensive team to start mashing dingers, and it's also true that winning a lot of games is likely to lighten the mood. But it would also be wrong to wave away such talk as meaningless. Confidence can go a long way.

The real test will come when a slump inevitably hits. Will this feel-good version of the Jays be able to vibes their way out of it?

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.