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Since early May, the Jays have been the hottest team in Major League Baseball. The only slight disappointment can be found in how they went into the break, with a series loss to the Athletics. As a consolation, the second-place New York Yankees lost their final series, too.

Beaten 6-3 by the A’s on Sunday, the Jays have a 55-41 record. Those are the most wins in franchise history prior to an all-star game. The .573 winning percentage is their best since 1992, the year they won the first of back-to-back World Series titles.

That type of run seemed impossible three months ago. This group appeared in April to be a carbon copy of the one that finished last in the AL East last year. The offence was stagnant, the pitching was only OK. They had the look of a perfectly average .500 team.

The turnaround began in early May. The lineup started to click and the Jays had someone new step up just about every night. In a year when the $500-million man Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hasn’t lived up to previous norms, a group of unsung has turned this team into a contender.

Infielder/outfielder Addison Barger, who went deep again Sunday, emerged as a power threat in the middle of the order with 13 homers and 40 RBIs in 72 games. George Springer found a fountain of youth to become an asset instead of a liability with a team-leading .853 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. Bo Bichette moved beyond last year’s disappointment to return to the player he was from 2019-23. Alejandro Kirk emerged as one the league’s top run-producing catchers.

Then there were the guys who were supposed to be bit players and instead carved out meaningful roles. Nathan Lukes went from being a fringe major-leaguer to someone who was batting leadoff with a well-above-average .371 on-base percentage. Ernie Clement hit .288 while bench pieces like Tyler Heineman, Myles Straw, Davis Schneider and Jonatan Clase all had their moments.

As the rotation struggled, minor-league signing Eric Lauer stepped up to limit the damage. Lesser known relievers such as Brendon Little, Braydon Fisher, Yariel Rodriguez and, for a time, Mason Fluharty combined to form one of the AL’s top bullpens.

There were so many guys contributing it didn’t matter that almost all of the Jays’ off-season moves backfired. Anthony Santander produced an ugly .577 OPS before getting hurt. Andrés Giménez was just as bad. Veteran starter Max Scherzer missed more than two-and-a-half months, reliever Yimi Garcia wasn’t too far behind and closer Jeff Hoffman remained healthy but inconsistent.

The Jays have almost nothing to show for the signings and trades that added more than $250 million (U.S.) to future payrolls. Then again, who cares? Those high-priced contracts are a problem for another day because right now the Jays are getting their money’s worth from a $247-million payroll, which ranks fifth in baseball, even if that value isn’t coming from guys they expected to produce.

The Jays were four games under .500 on May 7 and three games back in the division. Since then, they have gone 39-21 to leapfrog the Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays. Even after Sunday’s disappointing result, the Jays enter the break having won 13 of their last 17 games.

The only complaint is that the final series could have gone better. They won the opener 7-6, then dropped the second game 4-3. In the finale, José Berríos surrendered a pair of two-run homers in just three innings while relievers Tommy Nance and Justin Bruihl combined to allow two more runs.

The offence tried to get back in the game. Schneider hit a solo homer in the fifth and Barger added a two-run shot in the seventh. That narrowed the gap to three, but that was as close as the Jays would get. It was the first time the Jays lost a series since dropping two of three to the Chicago White Sox from June 20-22.

This was the best first half of baseball É«É«À² has seen in decades. Now we’ll find out what the Jays have in store for an encore because, as good as this team has looked of late, it also hasn’t accomplished anything yet. No team ever does until October.