Jays not looking like a contender

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had the single greatest offensive season in Blue Jays history one year ago. It all but carried the Jays to within one game of the playoffs.

Now, with an additional team added to the post-season, the Jays have basically assured a wild-card playoff spot and Guerrero has the entire second half of a season to find some of what he left behind a year ago.

In one spectacular season for the ages, Guerrero finished first in OPS, tied for first in home runs, first in on-base percentage, first in slugging, second in batting average. In any other year he would have been the MVP but Shohei Ohtani is not any other player.

There is no MVP race right now for Guerrero, as he is having a decent, respectable major league season. There is a wide difference between being decent and being exceptional.

As the Blue Jays headed to Game 81 in Oakland on Monday night, Guerrero ranked 11th in OPS in the American League, seventh in home runs, 21st in on-base percentage, 12th in slugging and 30th in batting average.

And the weird part of Guerrero’s statistical imbalance, the Blue Jays are just about the best offensive team in the AL. They’re second in runs scored, behind the New York Yankees. They’re third in home runs. They’re first in OPS.

All this happening with Guerrero being nowhere near the impossible standards he set for himself last summer, and with Bo Bichette struggling when compared with last year’s numbers, and slugger Teoscar Hernandez having missed 24 games to date. This is the Blue Jays stock market of sluggers: the numbers have dropped, the market is down and the explanations for the forever smiling trio are really unexplainable.

That is just part of the strange story of the halfseason nowhere close to what the Blue Jays envisioned for themselves.

They didn’t just establish themselves as a contender in the AL. That was the clear viewpoint throughout the sport. The gambling sites that are everywhere now had them listed as one of the favourites not just to win the AL East but possibly the World Series. Management assumed 90-plus wins. It was not an unreasonable assumption.

But almost at no time this season have the Jays looked the part of a contender. Unless Alek Manoah was pitching. Or maybe on a day when Kevin Gausman had it working. Contenders have a certain look about them. There’s a feel to it. It’s not just about how many games you win, but how you win them, and when you win them.

Something seems a little off with these Blue Jays and it’s not just a beaten-up pitching staff and odd choices to fill in assignments when necessary.

The parts don’t seem to connect. In June, the Blue Jays scored an impressive five runs a game and gave up an unimpressive five runs a game.

They just lost a series to the Tampa Bay Rays, who scored 24 runs in the final three games. Tampa is one of the worst hitting teams in baseball. They have had 24 games scoring two runs or fewer this season.

They’ve been shut out four times. They’ve had six games scoring just a run.

Individually, there is a lot to like about these Jays. Manoah is an all-star. Alejandro Kirk is putting up rather ridiculous numbers — he should be an all-star. So should closer Jordan Romano. And the Jays have been fortunate to have good health and strong play from George Springer and even more fortunate to have a half-season of surprising strength from Santiago Espinal.

The imbalance of this halfseason is somewhat unexplainable. Manoah has been great, Gausman has been solid and fill-in starter Ross Stripling has performed beyond expectations.

But Hyun-jin Ryu is out for the season and maybe next season. The highly thought of Jose Berrios has been among the worst statistical starting pitchers in the league and he’s not far from Yusei Kikuchi. The teeter-totter of this roster — up down, up down — goes almost player to player, day to day.

What you thought might happen, what you thought could happen, hasn’t happened yet. The last nine series they’ve played in, they won four, lost four and tied one. Elite numbers these are not. The Yankees are running away with the AL East. They are 36 games over .500. They have a run differential of plus162.

The Jays are eight games over .500. Their run differential is plus-24.

The Red Sox are on the rise in the East. Houston is dominating the West. The Blue Jays don’t look to be a threat to knock off the Yankees or Astros in a playoff series unless a lot changes between now and October.

This is the best roster the Jays have had since the World Series teams of 1992 and 1993. They won 96 and 95 games in those championship seasons. They won 91 games last year in the AL with seven teams winning 90-games or more.

The best thing the Jays have going for them now is their schedule. They’ve already played 48 games against teams over .500 and have a losing record of 22-26 in that time. The Red Sox, for example, have played just 31 games against winning teams. Tampa Bay has played 32. That scale tips in the Blue Jays favour second half.

But somehow this team needs to find a way, to combine hitting and starting pitching, to get more out of a bullpen that will certainly be enhanced by trades, to play better circumstantial baseball, to think the game better. Having all that talent means little without better production.