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On Aug. 1, shortly after they completed a radical roster-ectomy at the trade deadline, we knew something had changed about the Blue Jays. It felt seismic at the time. In hindsight, those were only small tremors that portended the Big One.

What's followed hasn't just been a good month for Toronto baseball. It's been one of the greatest Augusts in the history of the sport.

The Jays are 21-5 since that day. By winning percentage to this point, that's seventh-best in history – shoehorned between the 1954 Cleveland Indians (26-6) and the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers (25-6). Both those teams went to the World Series, back when getting there was a lot tougher.

Major league baseball has been a going concern for 140 years. It has seldom been played as well as the Jays are managing right now.

A weekend series with Detroit pushed this team's form past superb into unfair territory. There is no small irony in the fact that the Tigers gave up on the season by trading starter David Price to Toronto.

After (inadvertently) doing so much to help the Jays in their playoff push, Detroit was thanked for its kindness with a relentless three-game beating.

Twenty-nine – that's how many runs Toronto put past the Tigers.

Eleven – number of home runs.

Four – number of HRs hit by designated-hitter Edwin Encarnacion.

A bazillion – estimated number of hats thrown on the field after Mr. Encarnacion's home-run hat trick on Saturday. Or maybe it just seemed like that. The unfamiliar feeling of things going well has begun to make everyone feel a little wobbly.

One – number of times Detroit pitchers lightly tossed the ball straight at Mr. Encarnacion, essentially walking him on one pitch. That isn't fear. It's an acceptance that the statistically improbable is starting to become a near certainty.

By Sunday, Detroit had given up. It's true that no lead is safe in baseball. It's also true that some dreams aren't worth pursuing. You risk pulling something in the attempt.

For just about every other team in baseball, it's reached that point. During August, Toronto has outscored its opponents by 89 runs. Eighty-nine! Stick your head out the window as you read that number and scream it, Howard Beale-style. Because it's ridiculous.

That differential is better than all but two teams in MLB over the entire season. Everything you write about the Jays at the moment should automatically convert to italics.

When your hitters are collectively seeing the ball this well, they say you have a video-game offence. Normally, they mean MLB 2015. For anyone playing Toronto, it must look like Mortal Kombat. This sort of dominance should come with a parental warning.

According to various reports, Toronto could appoint current Cleveland president Mark Shapiro as their next CEO this week. The Indians begin a series at the Rogers Centre on Monday. If it's true, Mr. Shapiro's first task can be negotiating terms of surrender.

A month ago, the Jays were two games over .500, and just out of a playoff spot. Existentially, they were exactly where they'd been the entire season, and for what seemed like every season stretching back to the Cretaceous Period: close, but never in danger of actually getting there.

What changed? The short answer is everything, all at once. And we're talking about more than just trades.

They're now getting consistent contributions throughout the order; several players hotted up at the same time – from the obvious (Josh Donaldson, currently a lock for AL MVP) to the exceedingly not obvious (Ryan "Remember when I was an automatic out?" Goins) – the pitching staff has been suddenly and quietly dominant (fourth-ranked in baseball by ERA during August); the defence is perceptibly better.

The shorter answer is more elemental – you can just feel that this team is good enough now. Part of the credit goes to the returning crowd. When it's half-empty, the Rogers Centre is one of the dreariest parks in baseball. When it's full, it's one of the brightest. It's bursting again, and will be until it's over. Never underestimate how much company can affect an occasion.

Mostly, it's the ineffable chemistry of a fundamentally altered team. It wasn't a bad group of guys before, but it's a demonstrably better one now.

There is a virtuous circle of commitment coursing through this club. It is so close to tangible, you can actually see it.

One small example – midway through Sunday's game, a high ball was hit to deepish right field. Jose Bautista circled under it uncertainly, shielding his eyes from the sun with the webbing of his glove.

As Mr. Bautista adjusted himself, second baseman Goins sprinted full-speed toward him. He wanted to be there just in case the outfielder missed. He didn't.

That sort of beyond-the-call effort doesn't happen on a mediocre ball team, or on very many good ones. Certainly not during the regular season.

When you're hitting at least three homers a game (as the Jays have done in five of the past six games), you don't need to kill yourself on defence. You're already pounding them. Why fight for every extra base?

Great clubs do it anyway. Because they can. That's why they're great.

"If this isn't the feel of a championship team, I don't know what is," catcher Russell Martin said afterward.

That's the key point – how it feels.

It won't continue at this pace. That would be a truly historic outlier. There will inevitably be dips in form. There is nothing close to a guarantee of winning the division. Though flagging, the New York Yankees continue to list along, just 1 1/2 games back of Toronto. There's still a lot to be done.

But once fully captured, it is awfully hard to give up on this kind of momentum. It's self-reinforcing. From here until it's over – whenever that may be – neither the team nor its fans will believe this can end.

It's not the wins that matter so much as the manner in which they were won. They felt … inevitable.

The Jays have had other good months over these past two, fallow decades. But they haven't come out of one feeling like this.

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