The Blue Jays head into Tampa 15 games behind the division leaders but with some optimism about the wild card race. Tampa has historically been a bad place to go for the Jays but this time its different, right? Tampa had some struggles over the weekend with the Orioles but rebounded yesterday to pick up one win in the series.

SCHEDULE

Tuesday: Soriano vs Martinez

Wednesday: Scherzer vs Rasmussen

Thursday: Bieber vs Seymour

Vlad will be missing for all this series. The Jays will continue to see if they can keep winning 2-1 or 3-2. The Jays leading home run hitter is Okamoto with 24 and he has not had the best August hitting just above .200. He has no home runs in August, his last HR was July 28th. Second in home runs is Springer and he has a bad shoulder. Springer's last HR was also July 28th and he is hitting .178 in August. They are the only two Jays in double figures for home runs. Also on the topic of HR's, Kirk is the only Jay with with more than one HR in August, he has two.

Three Blue Jays have batting averages over .300 in August and one of them, Luis Urias, has nine AB's. The other two are Kirk and McAdoo. Meanwhile the pitching has been great. Five pitchers have an ERA above Shane Bieber's 3.63 and four of them are back in AAA. 15 pitchers have a better ERA than Biebs. Matt Waldron is the only laggard still around. Mason Fluharty has a 0.00 ERA in August.