Who doesn’t love a little midday baseball?

The dog days of summer are all but over and the hunt for the playoffs is truly on. Heading into Wednesday’s afternoon affair with the Oakland Athletics, the Jays sit half a game up on the Texas Rangers in the wild-card race, and half a game behind the Seattle Mariners for the second spot.

That’s why this afternoon’s game against the Oakland Athletics is so important. A win here, which would culminate a series sweep, would push the Jays further towards securing a post-season spot.

It would also give the Jays an even better record amid their 14-game streak against sub. 500 teams. This stretch kicked off back on August 25th in a series against the Cleveland Guardians the Jays lost 2-1. But since then, the Jays have had back-to-back series wins, along with two straight wins against the A’s, to go 7-3. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Ahead of this stretch, the Jays going 10-5 meant the would have a .563 W-L% out of the stretch, which is the exact W-L% of the average second wild card spot in the AL over the last five years. Let’s see if they can go even better than 10-5 as they round this series out, and turn their eye to the Kansas City Royals.

First pitch: 3:37 p.m EST — Sportsnet, Sportsnet 650.

Toronto Blue Jays: 77-62, 10.5 GB, 16 E#, – WCGB, +76 DIFF.

Oakland Athletics: 42-97, 36.5 GB, E E#, 35.0 WCGB, -303 DIFF.

Moneyline: TOR -167; OAK +142.

*Odds at the time of publishing. Odds subject to change.

Tune into the latest edition of Blue Jays Nation Radio as the crew talks about the Jays’ latest series against the Colorado Rockies.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.