Hi, this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire ” brought to you by Auto Logic, the Logical Choice.
Is it possible I was wrong ?
At the start of the Major League Baseball season I noted how it was the annual start of ” Wishful Thinking Week ” for almost every team and every fan base around the big leagues.
That included the city of Toronto where the Blue Jays once again sounded confident of a winning season ahead.
I didn’t see it that way.
The pitching staff was young, mostly unproven and the star of the future was on the shelf before the first toss of the season.
Yes, there were newcomers, but were Josh Donaldson and/or Russell Martin any more prominent than the list of stars who’d been obtained from elsewhere over the previous 20 years ?
Most of all there was a trend, history, a pattern that dictated the Jays would be out of it early, and if not early than certainly by the All Star Break.
Well, the pitchers, give or take the odd exception, have been steady to excellent, Donaldson and Martin have been tremendous acquisitions, and as we head into the final weekend before the All Star Break, there are the Jays right in there.
Yes, there are more than 70 games to play.
And yes, Toronto is in dogfight with the Yankees, Baltimore, the Rays and the not-quite-ready-to-quit Red Sox, so a negative swing is still a distinct possibility.
But for the first half and more of the season, it appears the early optimism for the Toronto Blue Jays was well founded.
I’m Fred Wallace