R.A. Dickey of the Toronto Blue Jays throws a pitch against the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., on Sunday.Stephen Dunn/Getty Images
Coughing up five runs in the first inning isn't the preferred route to victory for most pitchers, but when you're backed by the hellacious hitting machine that is the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays, things have a habit of coming up aces.
"Today was probably my favourite win all year," starter R.A. Dickey said of the Jays' 12-5, come-from-behind performance over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday, and his enthusiasm is understandable despite the five runs he gave up. With the victory, Toronto is back in first place in the American League East at the latest point of any season since 1993, and no one in this country needs to be reminded how that banner season unfurled.
For Blue Jays home games these days, Rogers Centre is almost as crammed as the Toronto Maple Leafs front office, filled with fans who just can't get enough of summertime's boys in blue. Sellouts are becoming the norm once again, not just for the home-opener, and given the show the players are putting on, it's hard to argue with ticket-buyers' rationale.
Scoring an average of 5.4 runs a game, the Blue Jays offence is the greatest show on turf, a moniker originally coined for the NFL's St. Louis Rams but just as applicable to the explosive Jays as it was for Kurt Warner and friends. Sunday's win was the 19th game this season in which the team has scored at least 10 runs – tying a franchise record with 38 games still left to play. The team's total of 670 runs is 85 more than Major League Baseball's second-most prolific team, the New York Yankees; the Jays' run differential is a whopping 164 runs, easily outpacing the 116 put up by the next-best St. Louis Cardinals.
That's along with the 36 runs and 48 hits the team put up in Anaheim, both club highs for a three-game series.
"We're on fire right now," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said Sunday. "Everybody in that lineup has been swinging."
Ten players batted in at least one run in the series – Josh Thole and Justin Smoak were the only two members of the starting lineup to not get a hit and drive in an RBI in Sunday's finale.
Of course, Josh Donaldson has been leading the way all season in that regard. The central figure in the heist of a trade that Toronto general manager Alex Anthopoulos made with Oakland A's counterpart Billy Beane last fall continues his emergence as one of the pre-eminent players in the sport.
A six-RBI Saturday allowed the 29-year-old third baseman to reach the century mark in RBIs for the first time in his career; he's also the first person to reach the milestone in the majors so far this season. Not exactly a shabby return from a guy playing in just his fifth big-league campaign.
His 8-for-13, nine-RBI tour de force against the Angels also stood in stark contrast to the performance of Mike Trout, the reigning American League most valuable player and Donaldson's presumed chief rival for this year's honour. Trout mustered just one RBI in a 3-for-10 series.
Of course, leading his team to the postseason for the first time in 22 years might do a lot to push Donaldson over the finish line in that particular race. Baseball Prospectus has pegged Toronto's chance at earning a postseason berth at 97.5 per cent, so while the unthinkable could happen over the regular season's final six weeks, it's looking more likely that Joe Carter's walkoff home run will no longer be the most recent playoff at-bat in the building once known as the SkyDome.
Las Vegas certainly seems to agree, with some bookmakers having already installed the Blue Jays as World Series favourites, along with the likes of the Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Dodgers and Cardinals.
Come October, who knows? In a world turned so upside down that the Blue Jays are playing meaningful, late-season baseball for the first time in a generation, maybe Anthopoulos will have to consult Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment president Tim Leiweke about parade routes.
Paul Attfield