At this current moment, the current tap of the stopwatch, the AL East is being headed up by the Toronto Blue Jays. Keeping track of this for posterity, this division could have a completely different outcome by the time I do another AL East custom in about 3 days.
But yes, the Jays are leading at the present moment. The Baby Jays are old enough to dominate, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is ripe enough to completely lead a team with both power and contact. Little corners of the lineup you thought would hang back, like Danny Jansen, Raimel Tapia, Alejandro Kirk and Santiago Espinal, have been strong as well. The new guys, like Matt Chapman and surprise DH threat Zack Collins, have fit into the mood of the team immediately. And despite Bo Bichette taking a bit to pick up and Teoscar Hernandez being out for a bit, the outlook is high. It's especially helping that George Springer is having pretty good numbers post-Houston, with a .265 average, 14 hits, 6 RBIs and 2 home runs. These are even keel numbers that it took a little while for Springer to hit after coming off the IL last year.
The pitching is...something. It's not a full victory like a lot of people thought, and guys like Jose Berrios and Hyun-Jin Ryu have been disappointing so far, but...there's inklings of fire in here. First of all, Alex Manoah's acting like an ace. Shouldn't be any question, the guy's coming off as the most accomplished pitcher here, his stuff scares me as an opposing fan. Guy's 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA, 24 and running the show basically. That's insane. Gausman is also fitting in pretty well, with 22 Ks already through 3 starts, and a 2.89 ERA. I worried that Gausman's geographical pickiness that reared its ugly head in Atlanta could also factor in here, but he seems to really enjoy pitching for the Jays, and I'm happy for him. And Yusei Kikuchi's been decent so far as well, though, as I predicted, not quite to 2021 levels. I also have been enjoying the wide strength of the bullpen, like the fact that people like David Phelps and Yimi Garcia can come in and excel, and also the amusing detail of Jordan Romano having 7 saves in 7 appearances.
This is a great Blue Jays team, it could go a long way. But with the roulette wheel mechanic of this division, there is no guarantee that they'll be the one that has the playoff success. When you have four teams seriously competing, you think with this 12 team metric maybe 3 make the playoffs, and the division leader will tussle with peaking during the season. So for this Blue Jays team to make it all the way, they need to not only have a good October, but to have enough of a presence through the rest of this season to garner entry into that conversation. This involves doing well against Boston, Tampa and the Yanks, which should be easy considering that they've already taken some from the Yanks. But they need to keep this momentum going, and shore up the guys that aren't performing well yet, or they'll risk missing out yet again.
It's never simple with this AL East dynamic. But with a start like this by the Jays, it could be.
Coming Tomorrow- Traded from a last place team, fighting to keep this one at least in fourth.
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