Well, the Giants did take the season series so I guess it’s empirically true. Not sure I believe it, myself.
Prior to yesterday’s meltdown he’d actually been on a fairly solid hot streak. In the preceding month, his ERA dropped by 0.99.
I would be mildly surprised if the Blue Jays had ever before, in franchise history, won a game in which they gave up multiple runs in five different innings.
As to their chances, well, you’ll know this week. They are three games out of the wild card, but only one behind in the loss column, and have three games against one of the teams they’re chasing. Win 2 or 3 more against the Yankees, and they’re right there, and after that their schedule is mostly favorable; they play
- 14 games against arguably the worst team in baseball (Baltimore) and a pretty bad team (Minnesota)
- 3 more games against the Yankees, an opportunity to catch up
- Six games against the best team in the league (Tampa Bay)
Playing the Rays six times sucks but is clearly more than offset by playing awful teams 14 times, so it comes down, heavily, to the six games against the Yankees, which is an opportunity to directly sink one of the teams they need to beat, against a team I honestly think is inferior despite the W/L record (see note on Charlie Montoyo below.)
If they had a better manager they’d be in a playoff position right now, but Charlie Montoyo is probably the worst in-game manager in the history of the team. He’s blown four games, at least.
EDIT/Delete Put in 2021 instead of 2022