Anything is possible for Jays in playoffs

On Monday, the Blue Jays looked like a team that could win the World Series. On Tuesday, they looked like they shouldn’t be anywhere near the playoffs. By Wednesday, they were somewhere in between.

That is the hope, the fascination and the wonder as the Jays’ playoffs begin on Friday. This club is capable of getting to the World Series and almost as capable of losing first round in a wild-card series.

That is the great unknown here for a group that has never really had all these possibilities and personalities before. They are here and there, in and out, so good and occasionally inept depending on the daily circumstance.

They were in a short series two years ago in Tampa, but they weren’t ready for the dim lights of Tropicana Field and whatever came with that. Now, they have a top of a starting rotation that will match anyone they face in a short playoff series. The first round is a best of three. The second round is a best of five. That plays into the Jays’ strengths.

They have Alek Manoah and Kevin Gausman as their top two starting pitchers.

They have a closer in Jordan Romano equal to or better than any closer they will face (unless they play the Guardians). They have more offensive possibilities, up and down their lineup, than New York or Houston or Cleveland or anyone else can match.

And yet they also have an occasional immaturity, sometimes a lack of focus or attention to detail, that can create doubt about this group.

So we have no idea what to expect — just that anything right now seems possible with the Jays.

THIS AND THAT

Captain John Tavares won’t be ready to start the season with the Maple Leafs, which isn’t good but also isn’t terrible. Consider this: Auston Matthews missed the first three games of last season and the Leafs won two of them. In all, Matthews missed nine games in his Hart Trophywinning season. The Leafs had a 7-2 won-loss record in the games Matthews didn’t play … The goals young Nick Robertson scored Friday night were the kind that would impress coach Sheldon Keefe, mostly because of the quickness and accuracy of his shot. Keefe lost some faith in Robertson last season rather quickly when he couldn’t hit the net on many of his opportunities and sometimes was wildly wide … The book on Ilya Samsonov: The less busy he is in goal, the better he plays. When he starts chasing the game, that’s when he gets himself in trouble … I understand why Rasmus Sandin didn’t want to sign basically the same contract Timothy Liljegren signed in the offseason. Sandin is more advanced than Liljegren and has greater upside … Mathews is scoring at a pace of 1.12 points per game in his career. Mitch Marner is at 1.06 points per game. At a similar stage, the Hall of Famer Mats Sundin, in a lower-scoring era, was at 1.03 points per game … The most important task for Keefe over the next two weeks: Finding the right partner for Morgan Rielly. It won’t be Jake Muzzin, even if they played together in a recent practice and got too many people excited. The best pairing would be TJ Brodie, but ideally, Keefe would be wise to have Brodie on one pair and Rielly on another … This would drive today’s coaches crazy: All but three players on the Soviet team from ’72 shot left. Funny, the best Russian scorer in history, Alex Ovechkin, is a right-handed shot … Just because Sergei Fedorov could play defence, or just about any position for that matter, while playing for Scotty Bowman doesn’t mean Marner could do it. The odd forward, Brent Burns to name one, has been able to switch positions that way. The odd defenceman, Red Kelly being the best example, was able to do the opposite. Phil Housley could do both rarely comfortably. I could see Marner being a regular forecheck target if he was put on defence for more than the occasional shift.