It may be tough to stomach for Blue Jays fans, but this 2014 championship season is effectively over in terms of the team’s playoff hopes.

The Jays’ collapse is historic.

This season will mark the first time a Jays team that climbed so many games above .500 and rose so many games ahead in their division has failed to make the AL playoffs. The playoff drought will stretch to 21 years.

The collapse will continue to be a hot topic of discussion for the next eight months, at least until next spring. When Jays fans feel the urge to drown their sorrows, to get together and discuss the devastating collapse of the past 65 games — a 27-38 swoon that’s taken them from first place in the AL East to third — there will be disagreement. Why can’t they duplicate the success of the 25-7 streak from May 4 to June 6? Who deserves the blame? What could have been done differently?

During the Jays’ early-season win streak that propelled them to 14 games above .500 on June 6, their high-water mark, the club was not only pitching well, but everything else was clicking too. They made all the plays, hit everything hard, found holes on batted balls and manager John Gibbons was even winning challenges. Similarity? Alex Anthopoulos was making waiver claims.

The hot streak? From May 4 to June 6 the Jays went 25-7, and the pitching staff posted an overall 3.33 ERA. The two top starters, Mark Buehrle and R.A. Dickey, were a combined 9-1 in 12 starts, averaging seven innings per outing. That is huge, but in the final 35 games, they need to replicate that.

There have been no overt signs to indicate that a surge is about to happen. That’s been one of the huge differences for the Jays since the moment they started to head south. Buehrle and Dickey, who had been so hot during the winning streak, are a combined 5-15 in 27 starts since June 7. Whether or not they deserve to be a legitimate 1-2 in any contending rotation, the fact is they are. But no true contender can have a top starting duo with a combined 21 victories on Aug. 20.

Still, you can’t pin the Jays’ slide on the starting pitching alone. In the 32 games during which they won 25 and lost seven, the Jays batted .278, with 53 homers and an OPS of .834. In the 27-38 slide since that point, the Jays have batted .259 with 54 home runs and an OPS of .702. Injuries to Brett Lawrie, Adam Lind and Edwin Encarnacion during the slump have obviously hurt and had a ripple effect on No. 1 threat Jose Bautista in terms of protection in the batting order.

Then there’s the question of centre field. I respect baseball analytics, but am not a big stats guy in terms of overanalyzing numbers. But there’s the Colby Rasmus vs. Anthony Gose situation, in terms of who should be out there in 2015 and whether to even make an offer to Rasmus, the incumbent.

The answer should be no. During the Jays’ hot streak back in May and early June, an injured Rasmus played eight games, with the Jays going 6-2. Subsequently, Gose, after being recalled in Rasmus’s absence, played 21 games in that 25-7 streak, with the Jays going 18-3 during that stretch. Now consider that in the current doldrums, with Gose being sent back to Triple-A Buffalo, the Jays, through Wednesday’s win over the Brewers, have been 11 games under .500 at 27-38. Within that stretch Rasmus is 22-30, while Gose, when he was here, was 22-23. It’s clear that Gose, despite his frustrating ego, needs to play.

What’s odd, offensively, is that catcher Dioner Navarro and left fielder Melky Cabrera have better averages and OPS, plus other offensive numbers, during the recent skid than when the Jays were winning. The biggest offensive dropoff from winning streak to losing belongs to Bautista. The biggest factors for that would be lack of protection in the lineup due to injuries, plus the likelihood that Bautista was trying to carry the team on his shoulders while others around him struggled.

On the pitching side of the study, consider that Casey Janssen was just coming back to good health early in the Jays’ hot streak. During that 25-7 streak, Janssen appeared in 13 games with a 0.00 ERA. Twelve of those games were wins. Since then, the aggressive Jays closer with average stuff has a 4.85 ERA in 23 games, with a loss and two blown saves. The swoon has been a total team effort.

As has been mentioned in this space, the Jays are entering a stretch during which they’ll play 28 of their remaining 35 games against AL East rivals, including six vs. the O’s and Yankees and nine against the Rays. So, mathematically, optimists can always find hope. The question is, do you believe in miracles?

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