You watch the Blue Jays extend the win streak to seven one night and eight the next and you start to wonder. Is this for real?

And then you think back to last June and that 11-game winning streak that got this city believing in the Jays again in a year that broke records for unrealized expectations and you wonder — is this any different?

The correct answer is only time will tell, but that type of answer in this day and age doesn’t cut it, so we went to the players and put it to them. Is this one any different?

Adam Lind didn’t hesitate. It was almost like he knew the question was coming.

“Yeah, it’s different because this time around the players that are doing it are the ones who are supposed to be doing it,” Lind said.

And by that he means that, for the most part, those guys the team was counting on heading into the season are primarily responsible for this good run. You couldn’t really say that last June when the Jays ripped off 11 straight wins from June 11-23 to climb to two games over .500 after that horrendous start.

In that stretch, Toronto’s busiest starter was Chien-Ming Wang, who would make three of his six starts, more than any other Blue Jay over that 11-game stretch. The Jays also were without both Brett Lawrie and Jose Reyes.

Lind has no doubt the pace the team has set so far can continue with some good fortune from the baseball gods.

“I think we can continue the pace as long as we stay healthy,” Lind said. “I think everyone comes to the park knowing their role and we’ve settled in nicely with those roles.”

R.A. Dickey, who made two starts in that 11-game stretch, doesn’t see the team going into freefall like it did after that good run a year ago — it would lose 17 of the next 24 to fall 10 games under .500 and 141/2 out of the division lead in under a month.

Like Lind he sees the contributors to this win streak sticking around unlike a year ago.

“I just think the personnel is different and that’s the whole key. Now you have a healthy Melky Cabrera, you have a Jose Reyes who we didn’t have when we won our (11) last year. (Munenori) Kawasaki was our starting shortstop and Macier Izturis was struggling at second. You have the personnel here this year that should give you a consistent rate of production and that coupled with much more confident and better pitching helps to sustain it.”

Jays manager John Gibbons says the biggest difference he sees between the two good runs is where the streak has taken them.

A year ago they needed those 11 wins just to get back to two games over .500.

“This year we have climbed over .500 so that’s a big difference,” he said before adding “and the offence is better this year.

“Even bad teams are going to go on their little runs. It’s just the way the game is. I just look at this team and see a better team out there.”

RED-HOT AND HUMBLE

Edwin Encarnacion might be the one guy in the lineup that is going to have a tough time sustaining what he’s been doing over the course of the past month and that’s understandable considering how locked in he has been, but he’s showing no signs of letting up yet. Encarnacion hit his 14th homer in May on Tuesday night against the Tampa Bay Rays to match Jose Bautista’s club mark for any month. Bautista had his stellar month two years ago when he had 14 in the month of June.

Anyone looking for Encarnacion to pump his own tires is likely to come away disappointed.

“Everybody on the team right now feels very happy with the way we are playing,” the Jays first baseman said. “This is not only about my home runs, it’s about winning games so we’ve got an eight-game winning streak and that makes me more happy.”

NO SURPRISE HERE

Mark Buehrle ran his record to 9-1 last night with a not-so-tidy but still effective effort. Gibbons, in his pre-game chat with the media, seemed somewhat taken aback when it was suggested Buehrle could be the surprise of the first third of the season for the Jays.

Gibbons was having none of that.

“He’s had a great career,” Gibbons said. “People forget that sometimes. He’s got perfect games, no-hitters, played for World Series teams. It’s not like he’s a guy who came out of nowhere and become a great story. He’s just off to a better start than he normally is.”

To put Buehrle’s start in perspective, he’s just the second Blue Jay in history to win at least nine of his first 11 starts in a season. The other was Roger Clemens, who won 10 of his first 11 in 1997 en route to his first of two consecutive Cy Young awards in Toronto.

QUICK HITS

The hard-luck Rays just got Alex Cobb back from the disabled list a start ago and he was looking awfully tough until he took a comebacker off his upper right thigh in the fifth inning. Cobb downplayed the impact it had on the rest of the inning, but it began string of four hits in five Jays batters including back-to-back homers by Lind and Encarnacion that broke the game open. Down 6-2 after that fifth inning, Cobb did not come back out for the sixth. “I’d love to blame it on something, but honestly it was really good hitters hitting good pitches,” Cobb said ... With his eighth save of the year Tuesday night, Casey Janssen has now recorded a save in 23 consecutive opportunities dating back to last season.

mike.ganter@sunmedia.ca