TORONTO -- Can you believe it? With another win Saturday, the Blue Jays grabbed their share of a crowded, messy tie for the final American League Wild Card spot.
You have the coming weeks to familiarize yourself with MLB’s tiebreaker rules, and both the Twins and Rangers still play later Saturday night, but this captures just how spectacular this recent run has been for the Blue Jays.
Saturday’s 4-1 win over the Yankees at Rogers Centre is their seventh win in their past nine games, finally making the Blue Jays (61-64) the “hot” team in a Wild Card race that has sat stagnant, waiting for a good story.
“It feels good to come to the yard,” said manager John Schneider. “You expect to do good things, and this makes it easier to go out and perform. That’s where we’re at right now. We’ve got to keep doing this.
“It’s going to be a grind with a lot of games left, but we’ve got to keep bringing this same feel and same intensity every single day. This definitely feels different than it has for a lot of the year. It feels pretty damn good.”
This is what mattered most:
1. McAdoo finally delivers the big blow
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the Blue Jays were stuck in a quiet, low-scoring game waiting for someone to get a big hit. Familiar, isn’t it?
Charles McAdoo changed everything with one swing in the seventh, a rocket double off the wall in center to score the go-ahead run. Just inches shy of clearing the wall for a home run, this looked like one of those classics from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., hit so hard (107.4 mph) that it was either going to go over the wall or through it. McAdoo came right back around in his next at-bat with an RBI single, too, breaking open the Blue Jays’ rally in the eighth.
“That was awesome,” McAdoo said. “It really got the offense going. I felt like it gave us a nice little jump, and everybody else just kept going with it.”
McAdoo is essentially the “next man up” in Guerrero’s place after the face of the franchise hit the seven-day concussion IL early Saturday. He’ll be in the lineup every day, and with a swing like this in a moment that big, McAdoo looks like he can be more than just a short-term fill-in.
“We like his profile,” Schneider said after praising McAdoo’s power. “Can play anywhere on the corners, in the outfield, and he’s got a lot of energy. Him and [Brett] Bateman, they’re bringing that every day, and it helps.”
2. Cy Young watch: Schlittler states his case
The Blue Jays couldn’t get much going against Cam Schlittler, who held them to one run over 5 1/3 innings with seven strikeouts. Chasing Schlittler that early was a small win, though, as they drove up his pitch count with three walks and some deep at-bats despite not making much hard contact.
This outing dropped Schlittler’s ERA a couple of points to 2.19, where he still holds the advantage over Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease (2.40). Cease does hold some advantages when you look at strikeout rates and the advanced metrics, though, so this profiles as a race that will go down to the wire.
Cease will pitch the series finale Sunday against the Yankees, and both pitchers are lined up to pitch again in next weekend’s series between these two teams in The Bronx.
3. Welcome to the show, Ricky T
Ricky Tiedemann made his big league debut Saturday, the Blue Jays’ former No. 1 prospect finally back after missing nearly two full calendar years rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Still just 23 years old, Tiedemann is still dripping with talent and upside, so while it’s an awfully bold move by the Blue Jays, it’s still easy to see why they’re going to him after only a handful of appearances in Triple-A.
Tiedemann allowed one run over 1 2/3 innings of work, striking out two. His fastball averaged 96.2 mph and touched 97.2, but you’ll often see him go to his slider or excellent changeup with two strikes like he did Saturday afternoon.
Tiedemann is going to get some legitimate looks over the next week against the Rays and Yankees. He’d been pitching on a stricter schedule in the Minor Leagues, given his rehab, but it’s possible the Blue Jays try to shorten those windows a bit to allow Tiedemann to pitch with just one off-day in between.