Chris Colabello #15 of the Toronto Blue Jays circles the bases after hitting a three-run home run in the first inning during MLB game action as Brett Lawrie #15 of the Oakland Athletics looks on on August 12, 2015 at Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Things have been running pretty smoothly on the good ship Blue Jays the last couple of weeks. The addition of a couple of sound deck hands in David Price and Troy Tulowitzki is no doubt bolstering the team's confidence.
The starting pitching, once Toronto's biggest weakness, has suddenly – not to mention somewhat surprisingly – morphed into a formidable staff that has played a key role in the club's rise to prominence in Major League Baseball.
But the tinkering by general manager Alex Anthopoulos is far from over with about seven weeks still to be played out in the regular season, and the Blue Jays seemingly primed to end a 21-year playoff drought.
They are not tipping their hands just yet, but with six off days over the next three weeks, Anthopoulos and manager John Gibbons have plenty of options when it comes to how their starting rotation might be employed in the coming weeks.
"We're looking at some things," Gibbons said somewhat mysteriously before Wednesday's game against the Oakland A's at Rogers Centre. "We're not ready to announce anything. With those off-days, there might be some adjustments."
Those adjustments actually began against the A's, with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey's scheduled start on Thursday being advanced by a day to allow an extra day's rest for Mark Buehrle.
Buehrle, at 36 and described by Gibbons on Tuesday as "an old man," just needed an extra day's rest to relax in his rocking chair and sooth his aching bones.
"He's hanging a little bit, that's all," is how Gibbons put it, speaking Texan.
Dickey is 40 and two years closer than Buehrle to being able to collect on his old-age pension. But Dickey was genuinely youthful in his outing on Wednesday, when the Blue Jays continued their all-out August assault, swinging the lumber with authority to crush the A's 10-3 before another charged-up crowd that neared 45,000.
The win for the Blue Jays, who entered the contest just a half-game behind the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East, was their 10th straight. New York would lose to Cleveland later in the evening to give Toronto a 1/2 game lead in the American League East.
Toronto started sprinted to a 3-0 lead in the first inning on the strength of a Chris Colabello three-run homer, his 11th of the season. It came off Oakland starter Aaron Brooks, who would not get out of the second inning.
Colabello would go two-for-four in the contest, driving home four runs.
Oakland responded with two in the top of the second, including a home run by former Jay Danny Valencia.
But the Blue Jays administered the knockout punch in their half of the frame, sending 11 batters to plate and scoring seven runs to make the score 10-2.
The big blast in that inning was off the bat of Justin Smoak, a three-run homer, also his 11th of the year.
For the most prolific offence in the majors, the outburst marked the 11th time this season that the Blue Jays have scored six or more runs in an inning.
It made for a relatively easy night for Dickey, who improved to 7-10 with the win, allowing three runs off six hits over seven innings.
Dickey has now registered a win in five of his last six starts.
Looking ahead, with all the upcoming off days, the Blue Jays could very easily go with a four-man rotation starting next week if the brain trust believes that would give them the best chance of keeping the team on its winning roll.
In that scenario, the on-again, off-again Drew Hutchison – who was definitely on-again during Toronto's 4-2 over Oakland in Tuesday's series opener – would presumably be the odd man out.
But for the time being, according to Gibbons, Hutchison, whose record is 11-2, is staying put and will certainly make his next start on Sunday in the finale of a huge series against the Yankees that begins on Friday.
Looking farther down the road, Gibbons said any plans that might unfold with the rotation will centre around Price, the new team ace who, ideally, will be kept to a regular five-day rotation as much as possible.
Price is scheduled to pitch in Friday's opener against New York and his next start would then fall next Wednesday in Philadelphia against the last-place Phillies.
The Blue Jays are also mulling the option of skipping Price's start against Philly. Instead, he would make the start Aug. 21 in the first of a three-game road series against the Los Angeles Angels, a much tougher opponent than the Phillies.
That would also line up Price to pitch in one of the games the following week in Texas against the Rangers who, like the Angels, are not counting themselves out of the playoff mix just yet.