Canadians feeling good about the Jays’ post-season chances

TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays have been red-hot since trade-deadline dealing landed them a pair of marquee names in Troy Tulowitzki and David Price. Having won nine of their last 10, the Jays currently claim the second American League Wild Card spot and continue to close the gap on the division-leading New York Yankees.

For the first time in what seems like a very long time, the Jays have a serious shot at contending in the post-season. A new Ipsos poll conducted for Global News shows that the optimists outweigh the pessimists with most believing that the Blue Jays will make their way to the playoffs.

Among those asked who have an opinion on the Jays, 82 per cent think they will make the postseason, while 18 per cent think they won’t.

In terms of how far they will go, 14 per cent believe Toronto will win the World Series, while 18 per cent think they’ll win the American League pennant, but lose in the World Series.

READ MORE: Blue Jays ticket prices soar on secondary market after David Price trade

Thirteen per cent think they’ll be eliminated in the American League Championship Series, 20 per cent in the division series and 17 per cent think they’ll make it to the Wild Card playoff, but lose the one-game showdown.

Across the country, the confidence that the Jays will make the post-season is high, but more so in some provinces than others.

Alberta is the most optimistic at 96 per sent with B.C. at 90 per cent. Those in Atlantic Canada also have a lot of faith, with 84 per cent trusting the Jays will make the playoffs. Ontario has 83 per cent, Saskatchewan and Manitoba 76 per cent and Quebec 72 per cent.

It turns out the younger the Jays fan, the more pessimistic they are about their chances. Seventy-one per cent of adults aged 18 to 34 think Toronto will make the post-season, with 82 per cent of 35- to 54-year olds. Ninety-one per cent aged 55 or older see the Jays as playoff-bound.

The most confident bunch in seeing the Jays as World Series Champs are those 55 and older at 18 per cent and those on the East Coast at 29 per cent.

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These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between August 4 and 7, 2015 on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,004 adults from Ipsos’ Canadian online panel was interviewed online. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval.  In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ – 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.