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Instead, they found a way to lose two tight games late — getting walked off in San Francisco and Arizona when they had the lead in the eighth inning, losing because of untimely walks and wild pitches from a bullpen that’s been the worst in the American League.

Unlike seasons past, almost every Blue Jay is getting a vacation over the all-star break, with only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. going to the midsummer classic. He will be the AL’s starting first baseman for the third time.

It’s the first all-star affair since 2019 with only one Jays representative; they had averaged five invites per year since 2021. But then, one is generally all a last-place team gets. 

And the Jays are very much a last-place team.

At 44-52, they trail the Tampa Bay Rays, fourth in the AL East, by four games. They’re only three better than the Los Angeles Angels, who hold the third-worst record in the league.

Sunday’s win should have been a romp. A fourth-inning grand slam by Kevin Kiermaier capped a six-run frame, giving the Jays a 7-0 lead, but the Diamondbacks tied it up with seven of their own in the fifth. Yusei Kikuchi, dominant through four, fell apart in that inning after racing to the retaining wall in foul territory and sliding to recover a Guerrero flip that glanced off the batter-runner Jake McCarthy.

Kikuchi, who is likely in his final weeks (if not days) with the team, wound up walking two ahead of a slam by Ketel Marte. He left with the bases loaded and two out and Génesis Cabrera coughed up the game-tying single to Eugenio Suárez.

The game would have fully encapsulated the misery that has been the 2024 Jays season had not Guerrero broken the 7-7 tie with a towering home run to lead off the seventh inning, his team-leading 14th of the season but first since he was hit in the hand by a Gerrit Cole fastball on June 30.

The fact that five relievers combined for 4 1/3 shutout innings behind Kikuchi also flies in the face of what kind of year it’s been.

But watching them pound a 2023 NL Cy Young finalist for the second time in a week — hanging seven runs on Zac Gallen Sunday after doing the same to the Giants’ Logan Webb on Tuesday — shows what this team could have been.

Finally seeing some entertaining and exciting baseball over the past three weeks after the absolute slog of the year and a half that preceded it makes the way this season has fallen apart even more tear-your-hair-out frustrating.

The team that couldn’t score all year is averaging 4.5 runs per game over their last dozen. That kind of offence would have helped a lot over the first two months, when they lost six games in which they allowed three runs or fewer.

But with four of the five best pieces in the bullpen unavailable because of injury or ineffectiveness, this veritable deluge of runs has contributed to just a 6-6 record over those 12 games. Nate Pearson, Zach Pop, Trevor Richards and others simply haven’t been good enough in high-leverage opportunities.

If Guerrero had started to hit home runs before late June.

If it hadn’t taken George Springer until a few days after that to find his stroke.

If the Jays had realized what they had in Spencer Horwitz six weeks sooner, instead of stubbornly continuing to give at-bats to Daniel Vogelbach and Cavan Biggio.

A more proactive approach to fixing the offence early might have kept the Jays in the race long enough to make it worth their while to trade some future to provide immediate help to a bullpen that has sprung leak after leak. But now it’s too late.

So at the break, we wonder whether Kiermaier’s catch to end Sunday’s game was the last play he’ll ever make as a Blue Jay. Or how much the trade value of Kikuchi and Richards might have dropped this weekend.

Can Yimi García get back after the break and show he’s healthy enough to bring back a decent prospect in trade? Does Springer’s resurgence mean the Jays will be able to move him and save some of the $60 million (U.S.) he’s still owed?

We were supposed to be talking about trade deadline additions that could bolster a team headed to the playoffs for the fourth time in five years.

Instead, it’s a lost season for your pc28����Blue Jays.

It could have been so much better.