Article: The Blue Jays Need To Get the Monkey of the Rays off Their Back

[Leo Morgenstern]

Sweeping their final series of the season will guarantee the Blue Jays an AL East title and a first-round bye. They should be grateful, then, that they're facing the sub-.500 Tampa Bay Rays, right? Well... maybe. But maybe not.

The Rays might be 77-82, but they're 7-3 against the Blue Jays this year. They went 9-4 against Toronto last year, and 7-6 the year before that. In 2022, the Rays outplayed the Blue Jays 10 games to nine. In 2021, it was 11-8. 2020? 6-4. The 2018 and '19 seasons were particularly brutal for Toronto, with Tampa Bay taking the season series 13-6 both years.

The last time the Blue Jays won their season series with the Rays was all the way back in 2017. In the eight years since, the Blue Jays are 30 games below .500 against their Floridian division rivals, sitting at 46-76. That's a .377 winning percentage, or a 61-win full-season pace.

Dating back to the Rays' inaugural season in 1998, the Blue Jays have a .449 regular season winning percentage against Tampa Bay, with another two losses in the playoffs. In that same span, Toronto has a .512 winning percentage against all other teams.

Things have been especially bad since 2008. The Blue Jays only lost their season series against the Rays (then the Devil Rays) once in Tampa Bay's first 10 seasons as a franchise – a period in which the Rays were famously dreadful, averaging 65 wins per year. Then, the Devil Rays rebranded as the Rays, and everything changed. In 2008, they finished with their first-ever winning record, won the AL East, and made it all the way to the World Series. And from that year on, those new-look Rays have a 186-121 (.606) record against their rivals north of the border. That means the Blue Jays have played at a 64-win pace (.394) against the Rays over the past 18 years. Against all other opponents, they've played at an 84-win pace (.520). Meanwhile, the Rays have played at a 98-win pace against the Blue Jays, compared to an 87-win pace against the rest of their competition.

Excluding their head-to-head matchups, the Rays and Blue Jays have seen similar results since 2008. But when they face each other, Tampa Bay grows into a behemoth, while Toronto shrivels into a doormat. The Rays have beaten the Blue Jays more often than any other opponent. The Blue Jays have lost to the Rays more than anyone else. In either case, it's not particularly close. 

So, as the Blue Jays stare down the barrel of a three-game series against the Rays, they aren't just staring at Tampa Bay's sub-.500 record. They're staring at 18 years of tough luck, 18 years of frustration, 18 years of losing games they should have been able to win.

That's the real enemy that stands between the Blue Jays and their first division title in a decade.

Even if the Blue Jays sweep the Rays this weekend, they'll still have lost the season series for an eighth year in a row. Yet, if they vanquish their toughest foe to collect their hard-earned crown, I'm hoping it will signal a new chapter in the Blue Jays-Rays rivalry. I'm hoping it will finally get the monkey that is Rays off the Blue Jays' back.

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[Spanky__99]

Jesus, that's depressing, in saying that, SWEEP!