Donaldson's dominant August has Blue Jays back in playoff conversation

Josh Donaldson is dragging the Toronto Blue Jays back into the postseason picture.

The Bringer of Rain has been flooding the Rogers Centre and opposing ballparks in August, propelling an injury plagued, and left for dead, club to within three games of the second wild-card spot.

After battling calf issues and offensive inconsistency throughout the first four months of the season, Donaldson has flipped the switch in August, and has returned to his MVP-winning form from 2015. Over his last 15 games, Donaldson is hitting .400/.530/1.000 with nine home runs, 21 RBIs, and just seven strikeouts.

"Josh is on fire," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons told reporters. "When he's getting a pitch he likes, he's not missing it."

The home-run ball has been of the utmost importance for Donaldson and the Blue Jays this month. The club is 8-1 with he goes deep in August, with five of his nine blasts plating the go-ahead run.

Another sign of how well things are going for Donaldson is that he took Chris Archer deep twice in Thursday's win. Donaldson entered the game 4-for-30 with no extra-base hits and 12 strikeouts in his career against the Tampa Bay Rays right-hander.

"We haven't seen a hitter that hot in a while," Archer said of Donaldson following the game.

Toronto was seven games back of the second wild-card spot heading into August with seven teams ahead of them. Since then - and without the services of Troy Tulowitzki, Aaron Sanchez, Devon Travis, and Russell Martin - the Blue Jays have gained four games and moved into a tie on percentage points with Tampa Bay and Baltimore.