Series Preview: 7/24-7/26 Tampa Bay Rays @ Toronto Blue Jays

While this series is obviously important, I can’t begin to even fathom the importance of next week’s series against the Yankees. We will finally be back at home for the first time since the All-Star break and I see it as a very crucial, if not one of the most pivotal series of our season thus far. There is the opportunity to gain up to 3 games on the AL East leading Yanks, and there is also the potential to fall 3 games further out, which could greatly affect our role in the trade deadline talks. We can continue to talk all we want about Lee, Martinez, Halladay; if we fall to 9+ games out of first, and potentially 7+ out of the wildcard, we may not be so appealing of a destination. We could see our FO shift from potential buyers to sellers. The recovery from this series in Chicago, the next six days, will make the remainder of our season extremely interesting.