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It doesn’t help, I’m sure, to say you shouldn’t be surprised. That no team can be expected to continue to win at the rate the Jays did over that magical month. That winning five of every nine games over the course of a season equals 90 wins and a likely playoff spot. That the Jays were due to get tripped up, but everything should still be fine.

Didn’t help, right?聽

That’s OK. For a certain segment of fans, the panic seems to be part of the excitement and the payoff. After all, how much better does winning feel when you’ve spent years tearing your hair out over losses?

Which is not to say that winning is guaranteed. The聽Jays might not make the playoffs. As veteran pitcher聽Max Scherzer said after the loss in Detroit that started their week-long slump:聽“You don’t get a ring for the end of July ... It’s kind of just almost starting.”

The playoff race. The tension. Going from “plan the parade” to “they might never win again” on a daily basis.

We’ve sort of forgotten what that feels like with the Jays. Sure, they made the playoffs three times between 2020 and 2023, but none of those teams were special. They were “anyone has a chance if you can just get in” teams, not favourites to go deep.

In 2015, the Jays caught fire after the trade deadline and rocketed to the division title, going 42-14 between acquiring shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and clinching the American League East. No angst, no tension.

The next year wasn’t exactly a repeat performance, but they were comfortably in a playoff spot all season. The consumer confidence index was high, since we had seen Jos茅 Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnaci贸n and friends work their magic the year before. We knew they could do it again.

This group? Not so much.

That combined with the annual falling of the Maple Leafs has increased the feeling of “we can’t have nice things” sports-wise in 色色啦, leaving fans constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When the Jays lose six of eight, even with stalwarts Alejandro Kirk and George Springer injured for most of that stretch, it sure feels like that shoe is dropping.

Here’s a positive, though: During that 2-6 stretch, the Jays lost exactly one game off their division lead.

Granted, it’s Boston that’s now second, the surging Red Sox having passed the Aaron Judge-less New York Yankees. Going into Monday’s road game against the major-league worst Colorado Rockies, the Jays had a three-game lead in the division. And they still had the best record in the American League. That’s a pretty strong spot to be. The Detroit Tigers, who recently lost 12 of 13 games, were in a virtual tie for first in the AL, which shows that horrific slumps can be overcome.

But that run differential. Doesn’t scoring only 16 more runs than they’ve allowed show the Jays are just pretenders? After all, one of the biggest reasons then-general manager Alex Anthopoulos went all-in at the 2015 trade deadline was that the Jays’ fantastic run differential indicted they were much better than a 50-51 team.

Going into Monday’s game, the Jays were fourth in the East in run differential and eighth in the AL.

I’ve never bought into run differential as the be-all and end-all. Does winning a bunch of blowouts show greatness that much more than winning a bunch of tight games? While luck plays more of a factor in close games, it can also figure into the things that lead to a team getting blown out.聽

Through Sunday, the Yankees had scored 92 more runs than they’d allowed, tops in the AL. They were 18-9 in games decided by five runs or more, but 23-27 in one- and two-run contests.

The Jays, on the other hand, were 14-18 in games decided by five or more, but 33-21 when the margin was a run or two.聽

In the nine games in which the Jays have allowed opponents to score in double digits, 10 pitchers who are no longer on the team combined to allow a total of 35 runs. The Jays’ ERA was 13.50 with Tyler Heineman and Ali S谩nchez catching in those games. I’m not sure that should really be held against them.

Regardless of how they got there, the Jays are in a great position with just under a third of the season remaining. They’ve been tremendous and they’ve been terrible, but the good has far outweighed the bad.

There will be more great weeks and there will be more rough weeks, and then聽鈥� more than likely聽鈥� there will be October. Hope you’ve got a few fingernails left by then.