The MLB season kicked off earlier this year amidst extremely low expectations of our beloved Toronto Blue Jays. I'm not even sure if you would want to go as far as saying there were any expectations at all. The departure of Roy Halladay still hung over the fanbase like a dark cloud - perhaps even coaxing some fans to exchange their black and blue Jays merchandise for white with red pinstripes. On paper, the team looked... well... young. Young enough that this year would not be their year.
Then all of a sudden, everything seemed to click. With nothing to lose, bats started to pound the ball over the fences. Pitchers were leaving opponents spinning. Wins were starting to pile up.
Fans were coming in droves to pack the stadium.
Okay, that last one was a lie. Truth of the matter is - nobody showed up. You could have, however, filled the stadium with angry Toronto sports media types that were all pleading, begging the fans to show up to the game. The Sun even went as far as publishing an editorial informing fans that it's "time to show up".
They couldn't figure it out. How was it that this team, that went from zero expectations to exploding out of the gate, couldn't put the butts in the seats?
I'll give you a clue. Go back and re-read that paragraph above about how well the team was doing. Bats pounding the ball. Pitchers smoking opposing batters. Wins piling up.
Have you heard that story before?
It has almost become a yearly tradition for this team to come in with little to nothing to lose, and take advantage of that opportunity to do well... for a few months. Inevitably, the numbers catch up with them and they languish for the rest of the season in mediocrity. The demise hasn't happened yet, but it's a long season.
This is why I hate it when the Jays win. It's not that winning is a bad thing. It's the way that the Jays do it that drives me insane. That they pile on these wins through the first few months of the regular season before a total collapse. That they win and win and win in a division where EVERY team wins. That when they lose, they do so with EPIC collapses in the last 2 innings.
Case in point, the Jays just finished off two 3-game series vs. the Rays and the Yankees. Personally, I picked this set of games as the precise point in which the proverbial wheels would decide to make their exit. I was wrong. They would come out of the 6 games 3-3, going down a game to the Rays but moving up a game with the Yankees. If you had mentioned the chance of a 3-3 result to most fans, the likely response would have been "sounds good, we'll take it!"
And yet, utter disappointment.
The Jays' two losses to the Rays were - wait for it - EPIC collapses in the dying innings. Even the loss to the Yanks seemed avoidable. 3-3. It should have been just fine. But because of the way they did it, it wasn't nearly good enough.
As they head into another series against the Rays, the Jays haven't yet met their demise. They're still winning.
But it is all about context.
The series against the Yanks brought attendance per game around 33 to 34 thousand. Better than the 16 thousand season average they had prior? Yes. But 33 thousand per game on the season would still leave the Jays outside of the top 10 - and 33 thousand per game certainly cannot last. They'll head back down to 13 thousand against the Rays. It's all downhill from here.
As for performance, the Jays are 33-25. That's a record that many teams would love to have - 33-25 would put the Jays in first or within whispering distance of first in just about any division in the MLB.
Except the AL East.
The Jays sit in 4th place out of 5 teams.
Want to know why the fans haven't shown up yet?
They've heard this story before. And until someone manages to re-write the ending to it, we don't want to read it anymore.
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