While the A's have their seemingly annual hot streak as they head toward another division crown, the Jays find themselves at the other end of the standings spectrum. As the Jays approach the final 4 weeks of the season they find themselves in last place 3.5 games behind the Devil Rays who have lost their last 7 games. The Jays are 7 games behind 3rd place Baltimore, and barring another diastorous September by the O's, that looks unobtainable.
The rest of the season looks like this for the Jays:
Oakland - 2
@ Anaheim - 3
@ Texas - 3
Baltimore - 3
Tampa - 3
@ NY - 3
@ Tampa - 3
@ Baltimore - 4
NY - 3
The Devil Ray schedule looks like this:
Detriot - 2
@ NY - 5
@ KC - 3
@ Boston - 3
@ Toronto - 3
KC - 3
Toronto - 3
Boston - 3
@ Detriot - 3
If the Jays make a move to 4th place it'll likely come beginning with the Rays' road trip next week where they play 8 of 11 against Boston and NY, with all 11 games on the road. After that Tampa will come to SkyDome.
Today the Jays face the AL's leader in wins, Mark Mulder. Many baseball writers will consider Mulder the AL Cy Young favorite, but frankly at this point it should be clear that Johan Santana is the superior pitcher so far this year. Perhaps Mulder inspires his teammates to score more runs and I don't realize it.
Anyway, the lefty is still a fine pitcher, but has been beatable lately with a 4.50 ERA in his last 3 starts. Believe it or not, the Jays are actually hitting lefties better than righties this year:
vs RHP: .257/.324/.387
vs LHP: .281/.346/.445
Miguel Batista has been erratic of late, but pitched a fine game in his last start against the Yankees getting the win after allowing only 2 runs over 7 innings.
Enjoy the game.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20040904011113999