Blue Jays beat Rays, extend winning streak to 8

Blue Jays manager John Gibbons summed up what his team’s last lengthy win streak meant in the overall scheme of things by pursing his lips and making the universal sound for stuff that adds up to squat.

“Last year when we did that we had to do it to get to .500,” he said. “That’s a big difference.”

He was referring to the lone bright spot in what was otherwise a miserable season last year, an 11-game winning streak they ran up in June that improved them from 27-36 and 12 games behind Boston to 38-36 and just five games out.

It might have rescued the Blue Jays from their horrid beginnings except Gibbons’ club followed up by going 7-18 over the next 30 days, wasting the franchise’s longest winning streak in 15 years and sentencing a year of great promise to a grim end.

Their 11-win stroll in the sunshine — a mark reached just three times in franchise history — meant nothing.

The more recent incarnation of the streaking Blue Jays has been much better timed, leaving them in first place by two games as they headed into the second game of their three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays. This year Toronto is putting money in the win bank rather than scraping to pay off losses racked up on their credit card as was the case a year ago.

On Tuesday night at Rogers Centre all of the elements that Toronto has had at the ready since they caught fire about 23 games ago were on display in their 9-6 win over their division rivals Tampa Bay.

The win was their eighth straight and their 18th in their past 23 games.

Starting pitcher Mark Buehrle was solid, if not dominant, in ringing up his major lead-leading 9th win against just one loss as he lasted 6 2/3 innings while giving up four runs on eight hits. In response Toronto looked ready to scratch runs out against Rays starter Alex Cobb, who came into the game carrying a 1.40 ERA in four starts interrupted by a stint on the disabled list.

After the Rays went up 2-0 in the 4th the Blue Jays responded with two runs in the bottom half of the inning and went up 3-2 in the fifth with all their scoring coming on infield hits, just proof they can, apparently.

And then just for good measure they dialed up their trademark power game as Adam Lind ripped a first-pitch curve ball from Cobb over the wall in left centre to put Toronto up 5-3 while Edwin Encarnacion followed up with a monster shot on a 1-1 fastball that ended up in the third deck. It was his 14th home run in May, tying Jose Bautista’s record for the most by a Blue Jay in any single month.

But how to handle their good fortune?

In the interim, simply by keeping it going.

“Obviously everyone in this clubhouse knows the kind of run we’re on,” said Jays closer Casey Janssen, who rang up his eight straight save in the ninth inning. “We’re enjoying the feeling and we want to keep it going as long as we can, but we know it’s going end at some point and it’s that next game, that next game.”

That time is not yet at hand, even though Blue Jays reliever Steve Delabar gave up two runs in the sixth and seventh to tighten the screws on what looked like a laugher before Brett Cecil handed things over to Janssen. Insurance runs scored on a Melky Cabrera single, a bases loaded balk and a solo home run by Juan Francisco were needed in the end.

But a lot more will be learned about the long-term stamina of the Blue Jays by what happens when the streak ends and they have to get back to gritty business of trying to win two out of three at home and scrapping to play .500 on the road.

After all, as Gibbons pointed out: “Even a bad team goes on a nice little streak once in a while.”

Across the other dugout the Rays were taking things in stride. A team that has won at least 90 games for four straight years knows that the fate of a season doesn’t hang in the balance in May.

The loss dropped Tampa to eight games behind Toronto, but there was no evident sense of panic.

“One of the things we try to do well here on an annual basis is play well in August and September,” said Rays manager Joe Maddon. “In order to do that, you have to have fresh people. Right now it’s almost June so you have to have that foresight and hold back on the reigns a little bit … sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war.”

Specifically Maddon was referring to his decision Monday night to use just one reliever, Alex Colome, from the fifth inning on in what turned out be a 10-5 loss for the Rays, but the broader implication was clear: there is plenty of baseball to be played.

How the Blue Jays manage if and when they hit a bump in the road will determine if this is as good as their season gets or if it’s a precursor to something bigger.