MLB Heat Check: Toronto Blue Jays Are Scorching (7-3 Last 10)

Form is the story the standings tell slowly and the last ten games tell fast. Right now the fast version of MLB is easy to summarize: Toronto Blue Jays are rolling, Detroit Tigers are reeling, and the gap between those two feelings is enormous.

Burning up

Nobody is playing better than Toronto Blue Jays right now. The record says 7-3 over their last 10; the runs column says even more, a +21 margin that works out to 5.2 scored and 3.1 allowed a night.

Right behind them sit New York Mets, 7-3 over the same kind of stretch and +13 on runs margin, quieter, but pointed the same direction.

And do not sleep on Pittsburgh Pirates, quietly 7-3 across their last 10.

Some context helps: across every club in the sample, scoring sits at 4.6 runs per game right now. Toronto Blue Jays are beating the league's own pace by 0.6 a game.

Who's cold

At the bottom of the temperature map sit Detroit Tigers: 3-7 in their last 10, -20 on runs margin. That is about 2.0 a game in the wrong direction, and no lineup shuffle fixes it overnight.

They have company at the cold end: Kansas City Royals, 3-7 over the same window.

The middle of the table is where the real congestion lives: Athletics (5-5) and Atlanta Braves (5-5) are separated by almost nothing, and one good weekend reshuffles the whole neighborhood.

The board

For the fuller picture, the five best recent records in the league:

The fine print

As always, watch where record and runs margin tell different stories about the same club. The margin tends to know first.