By: Ian Hunter

Canadian Baseball Network

As the calendar turned to September, all that’s on the mind of certain Blue Jays fans is October and postseason baseball. It’s hard to believe there’s just over one month left of the regular season, but the Blue Jays’ push for the postseason is underway.

Although the team is preparing to play arguably their most meaningful baseball of the season, they likely can’t help but keep an eye on their closest competition: the Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles.

For fans, at least, scoreboard season is now officially in full swing. No longer are some (such as myself) solely watching Blue Jays games, we’re also paying close attention to other teams within the division.

It’s a strange sensation to cheer for a team which I absolutely have no vested interest in, and yet I’m glued to the television in the hopes that Team X will defeat Team Y, with Team Y being the Blue Jays closest competition.

Up until now, a win was simply a win for the Blue Jays. But now it’s reached the point where a loss by the Boston Red Sox or Baltimore Orioles is almost as good as a win for the Blue Jays.

Even if the Blue Jays lose on that particular day, so long as the Red Sox or Orioles also lose, that day on the schedule isn’t a complete loss.

Do the players themselves ever become invested in scoreboard watching? I think they’re aware of it to a degree, but they’re likely so incredibly focused on their game, that the Blue Jays couldn’t be bothered to find out how their competitors fared.

The only way for the Toronto Blue Jays to control their fate is to simply win.  While Jays fans may experience some joy in watching the Red Sox or Orioles lose down the stretch, the players themselves are only focused on one thing.

Last year, Mark Buehrle quite famously entered the Blue Jays’ clubhouse and changed all the TV’s to a hunting channel (hat tip to Arden Zwelling’s tweet). It was no doubt Buehrle’s way of keeping his teammates attention on the task at hand, rather than what was happening around them.

If teams didn’t want players to look over their shoulders at the standings, then they wouldn’t flash the division standings on the outfield wall. It’s something that’s always been there, but in September and October, everyone is especially cognizant of what’s going on around them.

The bulk of the Blue Jays 29’ remaining games are against American League East opponents (22 of 29 to be exact). This presents the Blue Jays with an opportunity to bury several teams in the standings in a short span of time.

Conversely, these inter-divisional games could also allow the Blue Jays to open the door of opportunity for the Red Sox, Orioles, or by some stroke of magic: the Yankees.

Considering how closely and how often these American League East teams play each other, September is going to be an incredibly interesting month of baseball to watch for all of these teams.

The Blue Jays will attempt to fend off the advances of the Red Sox and the Orioles. The Red Sox are hoping their flurry of off-season and trade deadline deals will pay dividends. The Orioles want to prove they’re not a fluke, even though they own one of the most suspect starting rotations in baseball.

And then you have the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays who could play spoiler to any of those aforementioned teams.

The scoreboard watching may be something in the back of players’ minds as the action heats up in September, but a true professional is unfazed about what happens around them. And that’s the exact approach the Blue Jays should take down the stretch.

The only team the Blue Jays need to worry about, is the opponent they’re facing that particular day. Leave the stressing, cheering and scoreboard watching to the fans.

Follow Ian’s work on the Blue Jays at Blue Jay Hunter and follow him on Twitter, @BlueJayHunter.