New AL East threat brings reality check for Blue Jays

BALTIMORE -- The Orioles aren’t just coming for the Blue Jays. They’re here, and they’re a nightmare.

Thursday’s 4-2 loss to the Orioles moves the Blue Jays to just 1-5 against their feathered rivals this season, another taste of the relentless reality of life in the American League East.

The Orioles are suddenly sitting in the Blue Jays’ seat at the table in this division, built around a young, impressive core with a league-best eight Top 100 prospects still on the way. They haven’t even gotten to the fun part yet, either, when they can go out and sign their own versions of George Springer, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt or Hyun Jin Ryu.

Windows open, windows close and windows get jammed somewhere in between. Some of those windows, like the Rays’ and the Yankees’, tend to stay wedged open for a while, and the Blue Jays just got a front-row seat to an Orioles’ team that is finally feeling the breeze again.

“I think they’re past the point of being the cute, upstart, fun bunch,” said manager John Schneider. “They’re pretty good.”

For years, the Orioles lived in the basement of this division. Danny Jansen was the Blue Jays’ entire offense Thursday, launching two solo home runs to the pull side, but when Jansen broke in with the Blue Jays in ‘18 and ‘19, the Orioles were winning 47 and 54 games. All of those losses turned into Draft picks that were put to use, though, building the homegrown roster you saw holding off the Blue Jays this week at Camden Yards.

“They’ve got some good players who can swing the bat and definitely have a good bullpen, too,” Jansen said. “They’re definitely a different team, a better team and there’s a better atmosphere here, too. That’s the AL East right there for you. It’s basically five good teams throwing blows at each other.”

Schneider is quick to point to Baltimore’s bullpen, too, led by the brilliance of Félix Bautista and Yennier Cano. There’s one name, though, that jumps to the front of his mind immediately, a franchise cornerstone in Baltimore for the next decade.

“The biggest shift for them is Adley Rutschman,” said Schneider. “He’s really good. He’s a problem and will be a problem for opposing teams for a while. I think it’s pretty clear how much better they got when he came up.”

The parallels are so easy to draw here.

“If you look at the Blue Jays you are seeing those guys grow as young stars,” said Baltimore starter Tyler Wells. “You have [Bo] Bichette and Vladdy [Guerrero Jr.] come up. You have [Cavan] Biggio come up. I think as those guys have gotten older, they have gotten better. I think you are starting to kind of see that same transition with us.”

Enough about the Orioles, though.

Each year, four or five truly great teams will not win the World Series, and it’s the Blue Jays’ job to beat not just the Orioles, but the Yankees and Rays and any other contender for the AL Wild Card spots. That will start with an improved offense after a stretch when the Blue Jays have asked their pitching staff to be nearly perfect, because while many days have seen them almost do just that, it’s not something that can sustain itself.

Even Thursday, when Yusei Kikuchi kept the game close enough with 4 2/3 innings of two-run ball and Nate Pearson lit up the radar gun with 101 and 102 mph, the Blue Jays struggled to get much going beyond Jansen’s blasts. We all know they’re capable of more and we can all believe it’s just a matter of time, but in the AL East, the clock ticks loudly.

“We’re not exactly where we want to be,” Schneider said. “We can look each other in the face and say that. We’re doing some good things really well, [but] kind of sporadically. Whether it’s on the mound or at the plate. We really haven’t fired on all cylinders yet and I think you guys all know that, too. It’s not for a lack of effort and not for a lack of prep.”

If the Blue Jays existed outside of the AL East, where they’re 7-17, this would be a different story. Compare it to simply running uphill in another division versus running uphill in the mud and rain in the AL East.

The talent is there, though, and the Blue Jays’ window should be as open as anyone’s. It’s a long way to the top in the East, though, and the Orioles are officially in the way.