Toronto Blue Jays at Tampa Bay Rays

The Blue Jays’ lineup has waited for a night like Tuesday for about six weeks. The fact that it came against the team with the best record in the American League and inside a stadium that has been the site of so much disappointment for Toronto made its outburst that much more remarkable. The Blue Jays crushed three homers in their 10-5 series-opening victory over the Rays at Tropicana Field. “It was a really good team approach today, I thought, overall,” manager John Schneider said. “... You get three home runs and you get some timely hits -- that's really, really important, especially against a good pitching team.” The win was the Blue Jays’ sixth in the past eight games and pushed their record to 62-65, only a half-game worse than the Rangers (62-64) for the third American League Wild Card spot. The Twins are also 62-65. Part of the belief of why the Blue Jays can make the playoffs is that, for all of their struggles at the plate, the offense really has nowhere to go but up. Thus, although you can consider Tuesday’s barrage to be a bit of an outlier, it can also be viewed as a progression to the mean. Here are some numbers from the victory that illustrate just how this performance stands out. * It was the first time the Blue Jays had scored double-digit runs since their 10-0 win over the Giants on July 8 \-\- 34 games ago. * The three homers -- supplied by Alejandro Kirk, Kazuma Okamoto (to set a Blue Jays franchise rookie record) and Josh Smith -- were one more than the team had hit in its past eight games combined.