Not-so-usual suspects writing Cinderella story for Blue Jays

SIMMONS SAYS: Not-so-usual suspects writing this improbable Cinderella story for Blue Jays Get the latest from Steve Simmons straight to your inbox Sign Up Photo by Ridley Vaughan / Getty Images

Article content This is how you know — and maybe when you know — the impossible is happening right before your eyes.

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Article content When career minor-leaguers Joey Loperfido and Nathan Lukes hit back-to-back home runs for the Blue Jays.

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Article content When almost rookie Addison Barger is tied with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette in home runs. When Easton Lucas started the season with two shutouts and journeyman Eric Lauer has an earned run average of 2.80 pitching for Toronto. When Alejandro Kirk is deservingly headed to the all-star game as one of the best hitters in baseball and George Springer’s absence is considered a snub. “In about 10 days, I went from very mediocre to a really good manager,” said John Schneider on the Blair and Barker radio show on Friday. The Blue Jays are the hottest team in baseball and that’s happening as the $500-million man, Guerrero, has been just OK. Bichette has been a little better than that, but nothing special. And the big moves of the off-season, the signings of Anthony Santander, Max Scherzer and the trading for Andres Gimenez, well, they have proven to be about $40 million worth of nothing to date.

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Article content This is all happening with the Jays going to the all-star break first in the American League East and owners of the seventh best run differential in the league, the 13th best in all of baseball. And with the best batting average and least strikeouts in the AL. Schneider seems to understand how this has come to be. And if he pulls out a deck of cards and attempts a trick of some kind, don’t play along. He’s going to fool you and beat you. The way the Blue Jays are fooling everyone and beating everyone in baseball. THIS AND THAT In 2015, Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos decided to go all in after 100 games and 50 of them losses, all because of the team’s impressive run differential at the time. He made trades for David Price, Troy Tulowitzki and assorted others to boost a lineup that already had Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin. They were plus-95, with that 50-50 record when Anthopoulos started dealing. Their internal numbers showed they should have been 59-41 at the time. Blue Jays did finish the season with 43 wins, 19 losses and the incredible rebirth of baseball in Toronto and across Canada. The 93 wins they finished with that year were the most since the World Series years. That team should have gone to the World Series but was outplayed and outscouted by the Kansas City Royals in the American League Championship Series … Anthopoulos used the same strategy with the Atlanta Braves in 2021. They had just a 52-54 record but an impressive run differential of plus-49. He went for it at the trade deadline and wound up winning the World Series … There are 66 games left to play after the all-star break. If the Jays finish 33-33 in the second half of the season, they’ll be in the playoffs. If they go 36-30, they’ll probably win the AL East, which they’ve done only once in the past 32 seasons. Against all odds, should the Jays continue to play .585 baseball, they’ll win 94 or 95 games, the most since the Joe Carter home run team won the ’93 World Series … The Jays could use a Price-like addition to their starting rotation if they want to be a serious playoff team. Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt and Kevin Gausman are all excellent durable major-league starting pitchers at a time when hardly anyone is durable any more. But none of them have a Game 1 ‘oh-my-God’ playoff fear about them. You need that in most post-seasons … The Jays’ schedule to begin the second half of the season isn’t easy. Their first 26 games include bouts with the Dodgers, Cubs, Yankees, and very improved Orioles team. If they can get through those 26 games at 13-13, their last 40 games are not nearly as challenging … Baltimore, after a horrendous start, is 24-16 over the past 40 games. The Jays are 30-10 … There’s something odd about Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Brian Reynolds. He’s one of the most interesting and available players to watch with the trade deadline coming, and yet on his no-trade list are most of the contenders in baseball, including the Jays. Maybe he likes losing in Pittsburgh.

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Article content HEAR AND THERE If you’re a fighter, a tough guy and a good guy the way Ryan Reaves is, and you can’t play for the fighter, tough-guy, good-guy coach Craig Berube, not sure you can play for anyone anymore … The Leafs traded Reaves to San Jose, where hopefully he has some game left. The Sharks want him as a protection point for all their young talent. The Leafs had to take a player back in deal, which is essentially taking money back on a contract. That’s what they got in Henry Thrun, a defenceman without much portfolio … The online nonsense has Reaves being traded from the Leafs because of what he might have told Mitch Marner about living in Las Vegas. That is, like so much reporting on social media, pure nonsense … It’s looking as though there is little appetite from NHL general managers to go back to the live — everybody on the same floor — NHL draft. They will alter what happened a few weeks ago for next year’s draft, but they seem to like being at home, in their own working space, rather than on an arena floor at great expense to the team … An NHL GM on the state of junior hockey in the wake of Gavin McKenna leaving the Western Hockey League to play next season at Penn State.: “Anyone who knows what the future is for junior hockey or U.S. college hockey is fooling you. Until this all plays out, we don’t know what’s happening. I suspect junior will be getting younger but, other than that, let’s see this all play out and figure out what’s next.” … An old joke of my father’s: “I have two sons. One at Penn State. The other at State Pen.” The joke was only half true. I never went to Penn State … Dan Kelly was one of the greatest announcers in hockey history — top five on my list — and the longtime voice of the St. Louis Blues. Now his son, John Kelly, who has been the voice of the Blues for the past 20 years, has been let go. I never understand how these kind of things happen. You don’t tamper with the history of your franchise … This is a big year for Bobby McMann, a contract year. The Leafs winger scored 20 goals in his first 63 games of the season, and then nothing after that. No goals in the final 11 regular season games and no goals in 13 playoff games. So the Leafs want to know who he is and what he is … An interesting hire in Dallas: The Stars are bringing in former figure skater David Pelletier, who won gold partnering with Jamie Sale in Salt Lake, to coach skating. He previously did that for the Edmonton Oilers but now Oilers assistant Glen Gulutzan is the head man in Dallas.

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Article content SCENE AND HEARD A campaign has begun to get Dave Stieb elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is a deserving candidate for reconsideration. But here’s what’s in his way: He may be not as deserving or more deserving than Curt Schilling or Luis Tiant, Tommy John or Vida Blue, Orel Hershiser or Fernando Valenzuela. All of them are probably Hall Of Fame-worthy. All of them were not elected first time around on the writers ballots … I used to love baseball’s all-star game, when American League and National League teams didn’t play each other every of the season. It, and the World Series, was better when it was AL vs. NL for the first time halfway through the season and then at season’s end … I don’t care if you’re Mark Fidrych or Paul Skenes or anyone else who began their career brilliantly, but after just five major-league games, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski should not be in Tuesday’s ASG. Too many pitchers have put their lives into this to have an all-star spot go to a hard-throwing giant with a handful of starts … Twice, a player had has hit 38 home runs before the all-star break. Barry Bonds was the first. Cal Raleigh of Seattle has done it this year. He could become the first player with 39 if he hits one Saturday or Sunday in Detroit … Yep, that was Juan Soto, who signed for $765 million in New York, complaining that he wasn’t picked for the all-star game and therefore missed out on a bonus in his contract … I started scoring baseball games with my dad before there was a Blue Jays team in Toronto. So I ask the question: Do kids still score ball games with their parents, or does anybody bother anymore? When I was six years old, I thought I should play shortstop — never mind that I had no range or arm — because six was the scorecard number for the position.

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Article content AND ANOTHER THING Within the next two seasons, the NHL’s salary cap will go up to $113.5 million. That will come in the first year of Connor McDavid’s new contract, assuming he signs it with the Oilers. The starting price would have to be $20 million or more per season. I’m figuring a four-year deal at about $88 million is the going rate, unless McDavid really goes for a hometown discount … Women’s tennis, post-Serena Williams, may be the least predictable game of all. This is the ninth straight year in which a different player has won Wimbledon. And still no championship for the great Aryna Sabalenka … The two best things about the CFL this season: The play of Hamilton wide receiver Kenny Lawler, and the outspoken and original broadcasting of TSN’s Luke Wilsson and the two are oddly related. Wilsson spent most of his nine-year NFL career playing for Seattle. Lawler was a Seahawks draft pick in 2016 who was on the practice roster for two of Wilson’s seasons in Seattle … Chad Kelly, please come home. The Argos need you. Now and badly … Is Alex Pietrangelo a Hall of Famer? Two Stanley Cups on two different teams. One Olympic gold medal. A terrific 15-year-career … Larry Tanenbaum may own only 20% of the Leafs and Raptors but, according to both the NHL and NBA, he is the acting owner of those teams even as a minority shareholder. Whoever serves as governor of the team is considered by the league the owner of those teams. Tanenbaum’s 20% is about to be eclipsed by that of Edward Rogers, with 75% ownership of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and anything else he wants… Say a prayer for the once dynamic Ron Duguay, the most recent hockey star struggling with health issues … Not sure this has happened anywhere else. Nashville’s minor-league hockey franchise is in Milwaukee. Milwaukee’s minor-league baseball franchise plays in Nashville … Rogers can’t help itself, can it? It is raising television prices for Jays packages in this first-place season? Rogers can do that, but still can’t find a way to send its radio baseball crew on the road with the team … How much has Caitlin Clark changed business for the Indiana Fever. Two seasons before they drafted Clark, the Fever was last in the WNBA with home attendance at just 1,775 per game. Now, the Fever does 16,768 at home per game and just less than that on the road … Not sure this is related to Clark, but this is Golden State’s first WNBA season and it already leads the league in attendance. Toronto enters the WNBA next summer … If you’re picking an all-time Blue Jays team, who is your catcher? Russell Martin, Ernie Whitt or Pat Borders? … If you’re picking an all-time Maple Leafs team, who is your right winger? Rick Vaive, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Lanny McDonald, Ron Ellis, Gordie Drillon or George Armstrong? … Happy birthday to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (27), Joseph Woll (27), Bill Caudill (69), Sami Zayn (41), Bobby Carpenter (62), Cody Bellinger (30), Tony Kornheiser (77), Bruny Surin (58), Gilles Meloche (75) and Nathan Lukes (31) … And hey, whatever became of Billy Smith?

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