Blue Jays surging behind improving pitching staff

TORONTO -- The Blue Jays are playing their best baseball of the season entering Tuesday's game and a large part of that is because of the pitching staff.

Over the last 13 games in which the club has gone 10-3, the staff has a 1.98 ERA, which is the second best in the Majors over that span.

Even more impressive may be the starters, who have allowed only two earned runs over the past five games.

"If we could do that all year, we wouldn't lose a game, I bet," Mark Buehrle said. "We're going go through stretches where we're good, and we're going to go through stretches when we're bad. I wouldn't expect to keep this rate up for too much … just have to ride it out while we can."

The club's recent success on the mound has lowered its season ERA to 4.15 prior to Tuesday's game, good for 21st in the Majors.

"I don't know why we didn't do that early in the season," Buehrle said. "Obviously earlier in the year we weren't doing a good job, putting the team in a hole, and we had to battle out of it, and the offense did a pretty good job of scoring us some runs. Now we're going out there doing what we're supposed to do and giving our team a chance to get a couple of runs."

Part of the recent turnaround comes from Buehrle, who's allowed only seven earned runs over his past five starts.

For the Blue Jays lefty, however, there's no rhyme or reason for his play of late.

"I haven't changed anything. I haven't done anything different," Buehrle said. "Maybe working a little faster with J.P. [Arencibia] and getting on the same schedule. Other than that it's pretty much the same."