Win or Lose in 2016, Blue Jays Are Among Baseball's Best

TORONTO-While going down 2-0 in back-to-back American League Championship Series is not the best recipe for winning a World Series, the 2015-2016 Toronto Blue Jays have emerged as one of baseball's best teams. Win or lose, they have given Canadian baseball fans such as myself something to cheer about again in mid-late October.

Last year, the Blue Jays, who played .500 baseball prior to acquiring Troy Tulowitzki and David Price at the 2015 MLB Trade Deadline, comfortably won the American League East Division Title by six games over the New York Yankees. This season, they coughed up their AL East Division lead down the stretch to the Boston Red Sox before reaching the 2016 post season on the last day of the season by defeating the aforementioned Red Sox. After winning their American League Wild Card Game against the Baltimore Orioles, the Blue Jays found themselves back in the American League Division Series for the second year in a row against a familiar foe-the Texas Rangers.

In 2015, a lesser team would have folded (as the Texas Rangers did this season) after going down two games to none at home. Instead, the Toronto Blue Jays not only battled back to win the next two games at Texas, but they won the decisive game five at home against the Texas Rangers to advance to the American League Championship Series against the eventual 2015 World Series Champion Kansas City Royals. After going down 2-0 on the road in the 2015 ALCS, the Blue Jays won two out of three at Rogers Centre (something they must do again this year against Cleveland) before dropping the decisive Game 6 to the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium.

As we all know, the Blue Jays swept the Texas Rangers in three games during the 2016 ALDS; this extended the Jays' post season winning streak to six games over the Texas Rangers. Not since the New York Yankees' dynasty of the late 1990s/early 2000s has another team dominated the Lone Star State's Texas Rangers in the post season:

Dallas Morning News — Unacceptable and unexpected ending suggests something is missing with Rangers

"This was a repeat of last year, but it wasn't. This was no Game 5 with everything on the line for both teams. This was a dreaded sweep, a return to the '90s and instant wipeouts at the hands of the great Yankee teams that comprised the last real dynasty in Major League Baseball." -October 10, 2013 (sportsnet.ca/Dallas Morning News)

While I'm not saying that the 2015-2016 version of the Toronto Blue Jays is on the same level as the New York Yankees were during the late 1990s/early 2000s, baseball fans north and south of the 49th parallel cannot deny that the Toronto Blue Jays have emerged as one of the great baseball teams in the game today. Reaching the ALCS in back-to-back seasons is no small feat (it is worth noting that the Rangers reached the ALCS and the World Series in back-to-back seasons: 2010 against the San Francisco Giants and 2011 against the St. Louis Cardinals).

Going back to last season, how many of the four teams who played in either league's championship series are playing in this year's? Two--the Toronto Blue Jays and the Chicago Cubs. The World Series Champion KC Royals did not even qualify for the 2016 post season while their World Series opponents from a year ago (New York Mets) were bounced from the playoffs by the San Francisco Giants in the National League Wild Card Game. As for the Chicago Cubs, they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers last night by a score of 8 -3 following a dramatic eighth inning in Game 1 of the NLCS (Game 2 goes tonight at 9:00 Atlantic/8:00 pm Eastern on Rogers Sportsnet/Fox Sports 1). Last year, they were defeated by the New York Mets in the 2015 National League Championship Series.

As for the Blue Jays (who suffered two very tough road losses to Cleveland: 2-0 and 2-1), they will potentially play their next three games (Monday through Wed., check your local listings) at Rogers Centre against a team (Cleveland-1948) that has gone almost as long as the Chicago Cubs (1908) have without winning a World Series.

After ALCS losses in 1985 (KC), 1989 (Oakland) and 1991 (Minnesota), the Toronto Blue Jays finally got over the hump in 1992 by defeating the Oakland Athletics en route to winning their first ever World Series over the Atlanta Braves. The following season, the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Chicago White Sox in the 1993 ALCS (as a Tim Raines fan, I will admit that I was actually routing for the Chicago White Sox during this particular playoff series). From there, the Blue Jays defeated the Philadelphia Phillies four games to two following Joe Carter's walk off HR.

With respects to the Cleveland Indians, a team that holds a comfortable 2-0 ALCS lead heading back to Toronto, they suffered tough World Series losses in 1995 to the Atlanta Braves and again in 1997 to the Florida Marlins. If any city's fans deserve to win a World Series, it is the long suffering baseball fans of Cleveland, Ohio. As for the Jays, their fans also deserve another championship team to root for (I'm just not sure if this is their year or not).

And while it is still possible that the Jays may come back to defeat Cleveland in the 2016 ALCS, remember that if they don't that they have something special in Toronto, especially if they can keep either (or both) Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion beyond 2016. With a strong starting rotation, the best in baseball arguably, the Blue Jays will be World Series' contenders for years to come. To get to the next level (World Series) in 2016, they must find a way to solve Cleveland's starters because it doesn't seem as if they are going to be able to solve Andrew Miller, the single biggest reason why Cleveland swept Boston 3-0 in the ALDS and lead the Blue Jays 2-0 in the ALCS.

Win or lose, if I could give the Jays one piece of advice going forward beyond 2016, it would be to pursue a free agent southpaw (such as the Cubs' Aroldis Chapman) or sign a pitcher similar to Andrew Miller. Aside from that, I like the direction that they're are heading in (I just wish that they could win another World Series this year).

So sit back, relax (or sit on the edge of your seat if you prefer) for the remainder of the playoffs and watch until the final pitch of the 2016 World Series is thrown because once it is, it will be months before baseball, my lifelong passion, is back. And even if the Jays don't make it, there is a great chance that you will still see something special as Cleveland hopes to end its 68 year drought while Chicago's North Side hopes to end its 108 year drought.