From here on out, it will take everything the Toronto Blue Jays have to prevent slipping into a death spiral and watching their postseason dreams go up in flames. The rest of their schedule pits them against surging rivals, all either pushing to win the American League East or snatch the Jays’ wild-card spot.

The battle starts tonight against a clutch Seattle Mariners squad that looks primed to feast on the crippled Jays. The Mariners have earned that clutch label by being one of the best teams in baseball when it comes to winning games late.

Statistically speaking, when a team is winning going into the ninth inning, regardless of who they send out to the mound as a closer, it goes on to win the game roughly 96 per cent of the time. The Mariners, however, come back to win in games they’re trailing in about 7 per cent of the time, effectively reducing their opponents conversion percentage by 3 per cent.

That may not seem like much, but four games better over the course of a season is, well, how many games are the Jays trailing by in their division again? There’s also nothing that crushes a team’s momentum and will to keep fighting quite like blowing a late-inning lead this close to the finish line.

This series has the potential to be the one that breaks the Jays’ back. In fact, the Jays have pretty much everything going against them, including the Mariners’ park, the Mariners’ defensive range in the outfield, the pitching matchups, and the momentum of each team coming into the three-game set.

The Jays have the worst earned-run average in the AL East this month, which should come as no surprise since they also have the worst record in their division in September. What should come as a surprise is that they’ve had the fourth-worst ERA in all of baseball this month, and the second-worst bullpen ERA in the entire American League. The top spot belongs to the Texas Rangers, whose bullpen has been a disaster most of the season.

The Mariners, on the other hand, have enjoyed one of the better bullpens in baseball so far this month. Their pen, like the rest of the team, is hot right now, and is a big part of why they’ve been able to win eight of their last 10 games.

The Mariners will roll out their three best starters in Hisashi Iwakuma, Felix Hernandez, and Taijuan Walker to face the Jays. All three have ERAs right around 4.00, but don’t let that fool you. They’ve been hot lately, too. Walker is coming off a complete-game shutout against the Angels. Iwakuma has allowed three or fewer runs in his last three starts and has held the Jays to a .179 batting average and a .345 slugging percentage in his career.

Hernandez, who spent all of June on the disabled list, may be the Jays best chance of eking out a win in this series as he’s seen a decline in his stuff over the past season. His fastball is slower and his command less sharp, but most worrisome — if you’re the Mariners — is the decline in his strikeouts. He’s had eight this month in 16 innings pitched. Last season, he averaged 8.52 strikeouts per nine innings. This season it’s down to 7.32. Even so, he is still King Felix, one of the best pitchers in baseball who shouldn’t be written off. It’s also worth noting he has held the Jays to a .177 batting average and .328 slugging in his career.

They Jays will also have to contend with the Safeco Field, one of the more cavernous ballparks in baseball. The Mariners have focused on using advanced defensive shifts to take advantage of the extra outfield real estate, something the Jays won't be able to match.

But don’t tell Nelson Cruz or Robinson Cano that their park is big and difficult to hit homers in. The Seattle sluggers are having amazing seasons this year. Cruz is clobbering baseballs, hitting 37 homers so far, while Cano has 33. 

Given enough time, the Jays would pull out of this slide. They have a talented hitting club, and you can’t stymie an offence that, just last season (and with many of the same players) lead all of baseball in production. But this year's Blue Jays, specifically this month’s, couldn’t be more different. They’ve scored less than three runs a game in September, putting them on pace to score an anemic 100 runs this month after averaging 135 in both August and July. To put that in perspective, they scored 171 runs in September last season.

Putting all the numbers aside, even if the Jays split the series with the Mariners, they’ve still got to get hot enough to close the season beating the Yankees, Red Sox and Orioles.

I’ve often said that getting to the postseason isn’t a matter of being the best team; it’s a matter of being the hottest team in the last month. Unfortunately for Jays’ fans, the team has gone cold. They’re not generating runs and they’re not in a good position to hold on to leads.

The team is also dealing with injuries to key contributors Marco Estrada, Russell Martin and Josh Donaldson. Essentially, everything that makes the Jays the Jays is questionable at the moment, and there may not be enough time left for them to find an answer — especially when all of their opponents have found answers of their own.