Six statistics that tell a story about the 2024 Blue Jays season
Photo credit: Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 27, 2024, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 27, 2024, 09:35 EDT
The Toronto Blue Jays’ 2024 season has been full of missed opportunities and frustration as the team closes out September and the regular season with a losing record. As the team secured last place in the American League East and was initially eliminated from the playoff contention, many statistics reveal the Blue Jays’ identity as a whole.
So, what are some interesting and defining characteristics of the Blue Jays this year? Here are seven statistics that tell us more about this iteration of the team.
39-39: Win-loss record at home
Unlike any other season, the Blue Jays struggled remarkably at home despite the home-field advantage. However, Toronto didn’t completely flop on their home turf, as the team managed to maintain a .500 winning percentage. To put things in perspective, the Blue Jays had a win-loss record of 43-38 in 2023, which was a largely acceptable result from a winning team. What this particular win-loss means in the end is that Blue Jays fans had a 50/50 chance to watch winning or losing games in 2024 at Rogers Centre. So, if the odds were on your side, you may have watched a decent number of winning games.
.571: Winning percentage in August
This is where things get a bit bleaker. The Blue Jays only recorded one winning month in 2024, and that month was August with a 16-12 record and a .571 winning percentage. Other than an adequately hot month of August, the team recorded an average of .463 winning percentage between April and July, and the month of September is already well below .400. The lack of wins has evidently hurt the Blue Jays as they piled up losses throughout the season.
19-30: Win-loss record in one-run games
While it was clear that the Blue Jays lost more games throughout the season, there’s nothing like one-run game records that demonstrate the team’s challenges. Overall, Toronto grappled with protecting one-run leads in 2024 as both its starting and relief pitching took a step back, with injuries piling up. For comparison, the 2023 Blue Jays recorded a 25-20 win-loss record in one-run games, a statement of the team’s exceptional pitching performance at the time. But as the tide turned this season, Toronto couldn’t hold down their leads as effectively as before. Winning one-run games involves much luck, but it also demonstrates the effectiveness of a team’s overall pitching. This wasn’t the Blue Jays year, and they can only hope this one-run game record is a one-off phenomenon.
9: Shutouts and times shut out by an opponent
The Canadian team has not performed as well offensively once again in 2024. Toronto’s offence was lacklustre most of the time throughout last year. Their performance was feast or famine, indicating the lack of consistency. The Blue Jays offence wasn’t firing on all cylinders this season, either, but they haven’t been as bad as they seemed. In 2024, Toronto was shut out nine times, but the team also shut out its opponents nine times. This record was inexplicably much worse in 2023 as opponents shut out the Blue Jays 11 times. If there’s anything that made a difference in 2023, it was the stellar pitching core that provided solid innings for most of the season. With that pitching performance, Toronto shut out its opponents 15 times last year – that’s the secret sauce the team was missing this year.
7: Longest losing streak
As mediocre as the Blue Jays season has been in 2024, the team hasn’t lost as many games in a row as expected. The team’s longest losing streak occurred between June 17 and 24, as Toronto lost seven games in a row. Compared to the 2023 season, the losing streak was certainly longer, as the team only lost five consecutive games then. Perhaps the longest winning streaks could add more to this story. This season, the Blue Jays’s five consecutive wins was the longest winning streak – this wasn’t as different from the 2023 season as the team only recorded six consecutive wins. The sore lack of extended winning streaks came back to haunt the Blue Jays recently, and they got the best of the team this year.
3: Most games over .500
The Blue Jays have fought an uphill battle all season long in 2024, almost right off the bat. Monthly win-loss records are a testament to that along with winning percentage, but the team’s struggles to get over .500 proved to be the barrier it couldn’t quite conquer. The most games over .500 the Blue Jays recorded this season was three games. That’s compared to 18 games in 2023. This stark contrast portrays the team’s inability to win consistently in 2024 and their continued downward spiral toward mediocrity.