The Jays found their groove in California, and head home on a roll

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This article was published 29/05/2022 (1251 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ANAHEIM The Blue Jays aren’t all the way back quite yet, but they’re trending in the right direction again as the ups and downs of a 162-game season continue.

After a sluggish 2-7 stretch earlier this month, the Jays have bounced back in a big way by winning nine of their last 12. They are riding a season-high five-game streak and have moved seven games above .500 for the first time this season.

The latest win was a back-and-forth affair with the Los Angeles Angels that saw the lead change seven times on Sunday afternoon. The Jays came out on top 11-10 thanks in large part to a five-RBI effort by Lourdes Gurriel Jr., a timely homer from Bo Bichette and a gutty performance from an overworked bullpen.

“It’s about staying even keel,” said Jays manager Charlie Montoyo, whose team picked up its first series sweep of the season. “Our coaching staff and our players do that. They believe in themselves and we proved it today, and on this road trip. We keep playing good teams and we’re playing good baseball. Even 11-10, we’re still in one-run games … nail-biters, whatever you want to call them.”

The offence deserves the bulk of the credit for the recent streak, which hasn’t been said much this year.

After struggling for the better part of seven weeks, there were finally some signs of life from the previously underperforming group. The Jays averaged 3.57 runs over their first 42 games of the season; over the last five, that number has skyrocketed to seven.

Gurriel, a notoriously streaky hitter, has been a major factor in that turnaround with five hits — including three doubles — over his last three games. In the series finale, the Jays also got a pair of hits out of Raimel Tapia, as the No. 7 and 8 hitters combined to produce eight RBIs. Alejandro Kirk, George Springer and Bichette also had multi-hit games as the depth of the Jays’ lineup finally bore fruit.

These were the kind of games the Jays expected to be playing a lot of this season. Ones where the score gets away from their pitching staff only be brought back by a powerful lineup. That hasn’t happened very often this year, but it did on Sunday after José Berríos was rescued from another bad outing which saw him allow six runs on six hits and a walk across 2 1/3 innings. It was the third time over his last five starts that Berríos surrendered at least five runs.

The most impressive part about the last four days is that the Jays did their damage against a good team, instead of beating up one of the bottom feeders. The Angels entered this series ranked fifth in the majors with a 3.17 ERA. Across the four-game series, their starters’ ERA was 7.79.

“I think we always knew that we would, but it feels good to get going, play like we can,” said Bichette, who had seven hits and three RBIs in the four-game series in Anaheim. “This is a good team here, too. To get four (wins) here, that’s not easy to do, so it feels really good.”

The Jays’ resurgence has come at a time when the first-place New York Yankees have fallen back to earth. After spending much of the first six weeks as arguably the hottest team in baseball, they have dropped consecutive games to the Tampa Bay Rays and are 5-5 over their last 10. The Jays’ deficit in the American League East, which was 8 1/2 games on May 18, has been trimmed to 5 1/2.

The recent winning streak has also moved the Jays into the second wild-card spot, one back of Tampa Bay. Meanwhile, the Angels, who were three games up on the Jays entering Thursday, have dropped to the third wild-card spot, one game back of the Jays.

It’s far too early to get overly concerned with the standings, but the point is the Jays have managed to hang around despite some low points earlier in the year, and they remain in a solid position to continue to gain ground over time, especially if the offence keeps performing like it did in sunny California.

“Baseball is tough and every team has a chance to win,” said Berríos, whose ERA jumped to 5.62, worst among Jays starters. “Right now, we’re making some adjustments … and we started playing better. We’re seeing the results out there. We started winning more ball games and we want to keep rolling.”

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Teams normally don’t want to have an off-day when they are on this much of a roll, but these Jays are an exception and they’ll get one on Monday. This group desperately needs the break, not only because of the long flight and three-hour time change heading back to Toronto, but because an overworked bullpen has run out of gas.

Most of the relievers on Montoyo’s roster were supposed to be unavailable to pitch Sunday. Closer Jordan Romano was deemed off limits after he’d worked three consecutive games. Trevor Richards appeared in each of the last two, and so did Adam Cimber before he came out of the ’pen Sunday to make it three in a row. David Phelps has pitched in three of the last four, as has Yimi García. Phelps picked up the save in the series finale with a scoreless ninth.

The Jays need a breather. More important, they deserve one after an impressive road trip through St. Louis and Anaheim.

After limping into May, the Jays are going out with a bang.

Gregor Chisholm is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @GregorChisholm or reach him via email: gchisholm@thestar.ca