The Toronto Blue Jays always had this in them, and it’s why they always had to be considered a serious factor in the American League East.
Michael Saunders always had this in him, too, and it’s why the Blue Jays wanted to get him. It’s not just because he’s Canadian, although the one major league team north of the border always does like the idea of having a Canadian star.
Saunders was a star Friday night, with three home runs and eight RBI in the Blue Jays’ 13-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. The same day the Jays put Jose Bautista on the disabled list, they scored double-digit runs for the fifth time this week.
Yes, five times in a week, and you can’t blame it all on the Philadelphia Phillies. Only two of the double-digit outbursts came against the Phillies; the other three came against an Orioles team that has spent 58 days in first place in the American League East.
The top of the AL East standings are getting crowded, with the Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox both a game back of the Orioles. The way the Blue Jays are hitting, you have to like their chances of staying near the top.
Friday, they didn’t have Bautista and they didn’t have Troy Tulowitzki, who remains on the DL with a quadriceps injury. Tulowitzki wasn’t contributing much even when he was playing this season, but plenty of other Blue Jays have—especially over the last week.
Edwin Encarnacion had six home runs in six games before Friday, and while he didn’t leave the park in this game, he did go 2-for-3 with three runs scored. Josh Donaldson is 18-for-38 (.474) over his last 10 games, with four home runs and 16 RBI.
And then there’s Saunders, the guy who could always look so good in small stretches but could never stay healthy or consistent enough to be a real star.
Maybe that’s changing now.
Saunders had homered three times in the seven games before Friday, and his big night in Baltimore left him with 15 home runs for the season. It also left him with a .999 OPS for the season, second to David Ortiz (1.147) among all major league hitters.
As Gregor Chisholm wrote on MLB.com, no Canadian player ever had a night for the Blue Jays like the one Saunders had Friday. Not all that many American players had, either.
Carlos Delgado had a four-homer game for the Jays, but he only drove in six runs. The only Blue Jay with three homers and as many as eight RBI in a game had been Encarnacion, who drove in nine last August against the Detroit Tigers.
The only Canadians to hit three home runs in a major league game were Justin Morneau, Joey Votto and Larry Walker. Only Walker did it while driving in eight runs.
“Those are guys that I grew up watching and idolizing,” Saunders told reporters, including Chisholm. “It’s a proud Canadians kind of thing. Getting to know them over the years, they’re great people. I’m close friends with all of them, and it’s good company to join.”
Saunders’ arrival has come just in time for a Blue Jays team that wasn’t scoring all that many runs early in the season. The Blue Jays were tied for 13th in the majors in runs in April, which isn’t awful but isn’t anywhere near what they expect.
That’s all changed now. The Blue Jays are 20-8 since May 19, and they’ve done it by scoring 161 runs in the 28 games. If you don’t have a calculator handy, I’ll help you. That’s nearly six runs a game.
They’ve homered 52 times in those 28 games, or nearly twice a game.
Until Friday, the Orioles had actually outscored Toronto this month, 93-91, with no other team in baseball over 90. Add in Friday’s 13-3 pounding, and the Blue Jays have 104 runs in 16 games in June.
That’s 6.5 runs a game. And yes, it’s the most in baseball.
The run of double-digit games is impressive, too, especially when you realize the Blue Jays never scored in double digits five times in a week last year (when they had a major league-high 26 double-digit games). Two teams (the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins) haven’t scored double-digits in any game this season.
The Blue Jays have done it five times in a week.
The Jays still have questions to answer. Marcus Stroman’s ERA (4.76) is a lot higher than you’d expect, and not at all fitting the ace he could be. The rotation could be an issue, and the bullpen could be a bigger issue.
But when Saunders is hitting like this, and Donaldson and Encarnacion are hitting like this, the Blue Jays can hit their way past most of the questions. They can hit their way right into the AL East race, which is basically just what they’ve done.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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