It has only been a week since the Toronto Blue Jays traded for Troy Tulowitzki, only a week since my colleague and close friend Scott Miller graced this very space with a column headlined, “Troy Tulowitzki Blockbuster Does Nothing to Change AL Playoff Picture.”
Oh, really?
Only a week, but Tulowitzki has started eight games in Toronto, and the Blue Jays have won all eight. Only a week, but the Blue Jays’ league-leading offense is averaging nearly a run a game more with Tulowitzki in the lineup than without him. Only a week, but the Jays have already leapfrogged the Minnesota Twins into the second wild-card spot in the American League, with the New York Yankees and the AL East lead now firmly in sight.
Small sample size, sure, but if you could declare the Tulowitzki acquisition meaningless after no games played, I sure as heck can declare it game-changing now that we’re one week in.
I know, your point was that Alex Anthopoulos needed to acquire a starting pitcher, an assignment he aced when he traded for David Price two days later. And it’s true, the Blue Jays are undefeated in games Price starts.
He’s 1-0. Tulowitzki is 8-0.
In eight games, seven of them against playoff contenders Kansas City and Minnesota, the new fearsome foursome atop the Blue Jays batting order (Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion) have combined to score 29 runs and drive in 30.
Just look at what Twins outfielder Torii Hunter said after Thursday’s sweep-completing 9-3 Blue Jays win, via Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
Oh, and just look at this from Hunter:
The Blue Jays got the heck out of Toronto Thursday night, too, headed for Yankee Stadium and an AL East race that looks more exciting than ever. The Yankees still lead the Jays by 4.5 games, but the Blue Jays can take care of that in the 13 remaining games between the two teams.
That’s right, 13.
The Blue Jays have 52 games left on their schedule, and 13 of them are against the Yankees. One out of every four games the Jays play between now and the end of the season is against New York.
The Blue Jays arranged their rotation to make sure Price starts four of those games. You can figure that John Gibbons will design his lineup to make sure Tulowitzki starts all 13.
The Tulowitzki trade could still turn into a long-term disaster for the Jays. He hasn’t played 130 games in a season since 2011 (although he could this year), he’s signed through 2020 for big money (with an option for 2021), and now that he’s 30 years old he’s going to play more than half his games on turf.
Anthopoulos gave up big-time prospects to get him, and to get Price. We all said he went all-in, and we all know what happens if you go all-in and lose.
But we also know what has happened every season since 1993, which is the last time the Blue Jays played in the postseason. They’ve been double-digit games out of first place at the start of September each of the last 14 years, until now.
They found Bautista, and nothing changed. They traded for Jose Reyes, and nothing changed.
Then Alex Anthopoulos traded for Troy Tulowitzki and, as ESPN’s Dan Shulman noted, this happened:
I know, it’s only been a week. I know, the Jays spent that week at home in the Rogers Centre, where they had a 28-20 record and were averaging 5.5 runs a game even before the Tulowitzki trade.
Now they’ve got to go on the road, where they’re 22-31 and lost five of their last six series. They have to go to Yankee Stadium, where the Yankees are 32-18 (including 9-2 over the last month).
And it’s the Yankees, not the Blue Jays, who have been baseball’s highest-scoring team since the All-Star break.
You know what, Scott, maybe you were right.
But I doubt it.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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