The American League East had a bit of a shakeup on Wednesday and, no, we are not talking about the resurgent Orioles.
The Toronto Blue Jays fired manager Charlie Montoyo, according to Ken Rosenthal, with the team entering the day at 46-42 and a half-game lead in the final wild-card spot.
Bench coach John Schenieder will be the interim manager, according to a statement released by the Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays entered the season with high expectations and many predicted them to be the division winners of the AL East this year after they had spent money on big free-agent acquisitions in recent years, such as George Springer, Hyun-jin Ryu, Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Yusei Kikuchi and traded for Matt Chapman.
Instead, they are 15.5 games behind the Yankees in the division and barely hanging on o the final wild-card spot after losing nine of their last 11 games and playing sub-.500 baseball since June 1, going 17-22 since then.
The firing Montoyo, who is the third manager to be lose his job before the All-Star break this year (joining Joe Madden of the Angels and Joe Girardi of the Phillies), still caught many by surprise despite the team’s recent struggles.
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