The Blue Jays face a tough battle in the second half

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put on a show in last night's Home Run Derby in Seattle, bashing nearly 30,000 feet worth of dingers to make himself and Vladimir Sr. (2007) the first father-son duo to win the annual All-Star competition.

Vladdy's victory was a bright spot in a mixed bag of a season for his Toronto Blue Jays. With the unofficial second half of the season set to begin after tonight's All-Star Game, here's a casual fan's update on some of the storylines surrounding Canada's only Major League Baseball club:

The AL East is a beast.

Life in this division is never easy. This year, it's downright unfair. In a sport where all six divisions have at least one bottom-feeder, each of the five AL East clubs is at least five games over .500. Division-leading Tampa Bay (58-35) has the second-best record in all of baseball and the top run differential. Even last-place Boston ranks a respectable 15th overall in the majors.

But the Blue Jays are making headway. Since late May, when they were last in the division, the Jays have clawed their way past the Red Sox and the big-spending Yankees, who won the AL East last year. Toronto (50-41) is still a distant seven games behind Tampa Bay and trails second-place Baltimore (the AL wild card leader) by five. But the Jays currently occupy one of the three AL wild-card spots, putting them on track to reach the post-season for the third time in four years.

There's not much room for error over the second half, though. World Series champion Houston is tied with Toronto for the second wild card, while the Yankees and Boston are just one and two games behind, respectively. To stay ahead in the race, the Jays may have to improve their dismal 7-20 record against AL East opponents.

What happened to Guerrero's power?

Last night's Derby binge notwithstanding, the young star's slugging numbers have been in sharp decline since his breakthrough 2021 season, when he led the majors with 48 home runs and finished second in AL MVP voting. In 2022, Guerrero regressed to 32 homers while also seeing significant dips in every other key batting stat — most notably his slugging percentage, which plummeted from an AL-high .601 in his near-MVP season to .480.

This year, the 24-year-old first baseman's slugging percentage is down to .443 and he's on pace for fewer than 25 homers. Toronto's stadium renovations, which included alterations to the outfield fences, could be partly to blame as the Rogers Centre has been a below-average park for hitters this season. But Guerrero's dwindling power is a troubling trend and it's fair to wonder whether 2021, not 2022, was the real aberration.

Bo Bichette is the Jays' best hitter.

Despite standing two inches shorter and weighing more than 50 pounds less than Guerrero, Bichette has packed a lot more punch this season. Toronto's other young cornerstone leads the team in homers (15), slugging percentage (.496) and batting average (.317) — all while manning a premium defensive position as the team's everyday shortstop.

Alek Manoah made it back.

The massive young right-hander seemed headed for big things after going 16-7 with a 2.24 ERA last season to earn a finalist nod for the AL Cy Young Award. But Toronto's opening day starter struggled out of the gate, winning just one of his 13 starts while posting a hideous 6.36 ERA and issuing an astounding 42 walks in 58 innings.

In early June, the Jays finally decided they'd had enough and sent the 25-year-old all the way down to the Florida Complex League — the lowest rung on the minor-league ladder — to work out the kinks. After an awful first outing in which he allowed 11 runs while recording just eight outs against a Yankees affiliate made up of mostly teenage prospects, Manoah righted the ship and earned promotion back to the big club last Friday. The reboot seemed to work, as he allowed just one run and five hits over six innings while striking out eight Detroit Tigers and walking none to earn his first big-league win in three months.

Elsewhere in the rotation, strikeout artist Kevin Gausman is pitching at an ace level again this season, José Berríos has rebounded nicely from a miserable year and pricey free-agent acquisition Chris Bassitt has been so-so. Canadian closer Jordan Romano leads the majors with 26 saves.

Pitching help could arrive soon as 2020 Cy Young finalist Hyun Jin Ryu is now making minor-league rehab starts as part of his comeback from Tommy John surgery.

The new-look dome is a crowd-pleaser.

The Jays spent much of the off-season hyping a $300-million renovation of the Rogers Centre aimed at turning the largely charmless concrete dome "from a stadium to a ballpark," in the words of team president Mark Shapiro. The investment seems to be paying off, as the average attendance at Jays home games has climbed to nearly 36,000 — an increase of more than 5,000 fans per game.

Some of the boost can probably be attributed to baseball's new pitch clock and other pace-quickening rules changes, which have been a hit with fans everywhere. The fact that the pandemic is now behind us could be playing a role as well. Majors-wide, attendance is up by about 2,300 fans per game.

But, even in that context, the Jays' gains at the turnstiles are impressive. Only Philadelphia, coming off a surprising run to the World Series, and Cleveland, defending its first division title in four years, have seen bigger attendance increases this season.