By Stephen Johns

Analyzing Sleater-Kinney lyrics can be a fruitless task, but we’re pretty sure they had the Toronto Blue Jays in mind when they wrote this line: “Rollercoaster, want to go back to the way things were.” The way things were, say, in the late 80s/early 90s, when a winning baseball team was like a birthright ’round these parts. From 1989 to 1993, the Blue Jays won four division titles and two World Series championships. Since Joe Carter’s home run, however, it’s been a different story. The 1994 strike didn’t help, but the fact of the matter is that the Blue Jays haven’t made the playoffs in fifteen years. Only six other teams can lay claim to this dubious achievement.
This year, they’ve picked up almost exactly where they left off in 2007. The Jays are doing okay. They’re not great, but they’re not nearly as bad as some people are making them out to be (we’re talking to you, Steve Simmons!). The problem—and we’re hardly the first people to point this out—is Toronto’s woeful inconsistency, not to mention its chronic inability to score runs. The team is batting .228 with runners in scoring position, good for second-last in Major League Baseball. Meanwhile, they’ve got a worrying tendency of stranding baserunners. Last week, during consecutive losses to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, they stranded twenty-one. They will not compete in the American League East if they don’t improve in these categories
That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Jays are on a five-game winning streak that has taken them back over .500. There’s also growing reason for optimism: Toronto’s pitching staff is quietly putting together a spectacular year. They’re currently ranked second in baseball, trailing only the Oakland Athletics. During the recent four-game sweep of the Kansas City Royals, Toronto pitching surrendered exactly four runs. Their starters figured in all four decisions; the bullpen was limited to 3.2 total innings, which means they’re well-rested as the team embarks on a nine-game road trip. It’s a tough stretch, with games against the A’s, the Angels and the New York Yankees—but given what’s been happening so far this year, anything’s possible. Who knows? If they can figure out how to score a few more runs, they’ll have us thinking of another Sleater-Kinney line: “Take me to the source of chaos / Let me be the butterfly.” We’re pretty sure that’s a euphemism for “hey, we actually root for a pretty good ballclub!”
Photo by uwajedi from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.