Ryan Goins hits a two-run double for the Blue Jays against the Pirates on Aug. 13, 2017.Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images
Two out of three is not bad, as they say.
But it probably won't be good enough for the Toronto Blue Jays if they hope to snag one of the two wild-card playoff berths in the American League.
The Blue Jays won the rubber game of their three-game set over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday at Rogers Centre, bashing three home runs and then riding a good start from J.A. Happ to produce a 7-1 victory.
And they did it without their snappy red uniforms, which have been a staple at many of Toronto's Sunday home games this season. They wore their regular home whites and it obviously agreed with the players.
"Just bang it," said Toronto shortstop Ryan Goins, when asked to explain the players disdain over red.
"We should probably shred them, burn 'em, I don't know – give them away to charity or something. But they've got to go."
The red jerseys were in the lockers and ready to be worn, but the players had a change of heart – not to mention colour – after talking among themselves before the game.
Toronto is 3-4 when wearing red this season, including a 15-1 thumping at the hands of the Boston Red Sox on July 2 and a 19-1 shellacking by the Houston Astros on July 9.
Goins was obviously uplifted by the sudden colour consciousness of the team. He drove in two of Toronto's five runs in the first inning.
After losing the series opener on Friday, the Blue Jays won 7-2 on Saturday behind the inspirational debut of Chris Rowley, who became the first graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to play in Major League Baseball.
The Blue Jays, 56-61, have 45 games left to play.
Consider that, since the expansion to two wild-card teams in 2012, it has taken on average about 90 wins (89.8) for a team in the American League to qualify for the playoff spots. The team with the fewest regular-season wins to still qualify for a wild-card berth was the Houston Astros in 2015 with 86 victories.
That is about where the Blue Jays will finish if they continue their win-two, lose-one pattern of late.
Their win on Sunday against the Pirates was their second successive series in which they won two of three games. The Blue Jays dispatched the New York Yankees in the same fashion earlier in the week.
Ordinarily that is a good recipe for securing a playoff spot, provided such a run is initiated earlier in the season.
But the Blue Jays will likely need to do better than that if they harbour any hopes of getting into the postseason for a third consecutive year.
With 45 games left, a .666 pace would see the Blue Jays go 30-15.
Their overall mark at the finish line would then be 86-76.
History suggests that won't cut it.
And Toronto, which started play on Sunday four games back of a wild-card berth, will need to leapfrog seven teams ahead of it in the race.
"I don't know, you don't know – nobody knows," Toronto manager John Gibbons said when asked if Toronto will need a big win streak in order to enhance its postseason chances.
"Just go out there, hey, run this thing and see where you end up.
"But like I said, we're playing good baseball. Some people think they're smart enough to know that. Nobody knows that."
The Pirates tapped Happ for three singles in their first at-bats in the first inning to take a quick 1-0 lead.
But it did not take long for the Toronto offence to strike back.
In the bottom of the first, the Blue Jays bats raked Pittsburgh starter Chad Kuhl for three extra-base hits, including a home run by Josh Donaldson, to gain a 5-1 lead.
Donaldson started the onslaught after Jose Bautista drew a leadoff walk, clocking a 95-mile-an-hour four-seam fastball from Kuhl that kept on going until the ball dented the facing above the second deck in left field.
A Justin Smoak double and a walk by Ezequiel Carrera left runners at first and second for Goins.
The shortstop laced a double into the right-field corner that cashed both baserunners to extend Toronto's lead to 4-1.
Goins made the score 5-1, alertly stealing home from third base after Kevin Pillar got hung up between first and second in a rundown. Goins took off for home and was just safe in a slide.
Happ put it on lockdown after that first inning and allowed just one hit, by Sean Rodriguez, over the next five innings.
Happ (6-8) allowed just the one run, with four hits and eight strikeouts to earn his third straight win.
The Blue Jays padded their lead with home runs by Darwin Barney, his third of the year, in the sixth inning, and Smoak, who continued his dream season with No. 32 in the seventh.