The Toronto Blue Jays weren’t supposed to be in this position.

On one hand, you’d think the defending American League Champions would be much better than a 76-77 record, fighting for the last Wild Card spot. On the other hand, you’d also think the Blue Jays have no business even sniffing the postseason considering their record in early August.

On August 3, after the Blue Jays traded away roster mainstays like Kevin Gausman, Daulton Varsho, and Jeff Hoffman, it felt like rock bottom for Toronto. 4.5 games out of a playoff spot and with four teams ahead of them in the chase, things couldn’t get much worse for the Blue Jays.

Since then, they’re 24-17, owning the third-best record in the American League since the trade deadline. The Blue Jays were on life support, but they weren’t dead.

Fast forward to now, with nine games left to play in the regular season, and the Blue Jays are two games back of a playoff spot. If you told the fan base back on August 3 that this team would still somehow be in the running, they’d gladly take meaningful games in September over a death march to the last day of the season.

Regardless of how this last week-and-change pans out, nobody could have predicted the way this season unfolded for the Blue Jays (both the good and the bad, but mostly the bad). But after last year’s run, anything less than a postseason appearance will be viewed as a disappointing season.

When a team with a $300-million payroll fails to make the playoffs, questions are going to be asked. Many of the same concerns at 1 Blue Jays Way are also likely happening inside the New York Mets front office. The Mets, with the highest payroll in baseball, failed to make the postseason for the second consecutive year.

But unlike the Metropolitans, the Blue Jays still have a chance. They could do the unthinkable and make the playoffs after sitting at a season-low 4.3% playoff odds back on August 5.

If you’re one of the 12 teams who are fortunate to play late September or October baseball, you’re thankful for the opportunity, no matter how brief it may be. The alternative is no playoff games and no shot at a World Series title.

Blue Jays fans of a certain vintage are all too familiar with the 22-year playoff drought that plagued this team from the mid-1990s and well into the 2000s. For most of that era, the Yankees and Red Sox had the division title and Wild Card spot all sewn up, so Septembers were typically solemn at Rogers Centre.

Because of the additional Wild Card spots added in 2012 (and expanding to a third Wild Card in 2022), there’s far more parity in baseball than there ever was, which means even if you’re hovering around .500 like the 2026 Blue Jays are, you still have something left to play for down the stretch.

Lord knows it hasn’t been pretty for this club at times, especially after losing series to the Athletics and Detroit Tigers over the last week. The Jays didn’t do themselves any favours by losing some winnable ball games, and their postseason fate isn’t entirely in their own hands anymore.

If the Blue Jays don’t pull this thing off, it will feel like an opportunity missed because they’d be unlikely to face a postseason juggernaut until at least the American League Championship series. With a weak AL Central and West, neither of those division winners will strike fear into their opponents, so those are winnable series on paper.

So much was written earlier in the month about the Blue Jays’ favourable strength of schedule down the stretch. They weren’t supposed to face a team over .500 the rest of the way, remember? Although they may look like “layup” series, the Blue Jays still had to win those games.

For a team that pseudo-sold at the trade deadline, it’s a small miracle the Blue Jays are still in this thing. They weren’t waving the white flag on the season back then, but it would’ve been hard to justify them being significant buyers at the trade deadline, given their place in the standings.

There’s still a lot of work for the Blue Jays to leap back into the playoff picture. If a team like the Blue Jays can’t take advantage of weak opponents and a favourable schedule, then they don’t deserve to be in the postseason this year. They’ve played better in previous seasons and were on the outside looking in (2021 Blue Jays, I’m staring at you).

This late in the year, all you’re asking for is a shot to be a playoff team. And if you’re fortunate to be one of the last ones standing, the season resets on September 29. Whether you limped into October or clinched in late August doesn’t matter.

At this point, Blue Jays players would happily battle in a Wild Card series rather than book their offseason trip to Cancun.