Blue Jays Enter Crucial Stretch With Chance To Extend AL East Lead

The Blue Jays have a golden opportunity to run away with the American League East division over the next week and a half.

Mar 6, 2021; Dunedin, Florida, USA; A detailed view of the Toronto Blue Jays logo on a building at TD Ballpark during the spring training game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies. | Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

The Toronto Blue Jays have been one of the best stories in MLB this season, overcoming a lackluster start to deliver the best run of play fans of the club have seen in a decade.

On May 25, the Blue Jays owned a 25-27 record and sat in fourth place in the American League East division.

They were within a game of both the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, but were seven games behind the then-scorching hot New York Yankees.

Nearly three months later, Toronto is up in the division by five games over the Red Sox and five and a half over New York, while the Rays have fallen out of the picture completely.

A productive trade deadline should pay dividends soon as Shane Bieber nears his team debut, and as the final month of the regular season draws closer, the Jays have a chance to really put the division out of reach with a strong close to August.

Blue Jays Next 3 Opponents Present Opportunity to Expand Division Lead

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Toronto just wrapped up a rather brutal portion of its schedule, drawing the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and a resurgent Texas Rangers squad for their past nine contests.

The Jays passed that test, going 5-4, but now they have a chance with their next nine games to really kick things into high gear.

Toronto's next three series are all three-game sets against teams with losing records. A road-trip starts Monday night at Pittsburgh against the Pirates and continues for three more this weekend in Miami against the Marlins, and then the Jays will come back to Ontario for three against the Minnesota Twins.

The Pirates are the last-place team in the NL Central, and they've gone 3-7 in their past 10. Ace Paul Skenes is on the mound for the Bucs on Monday, but he's looked more gettable of late. Toronto should be able to take this series.

Up next is the Marlins, who were smoking hot for much of July after a brutal start but have come back to earth lately. The Fish are 3-7 in their last 10, which has dashed their already-grim wild card outlook.

Then it's the Twins, a team that completely demoralized its fan base by selling massive portions of its roster at the trade deadline. Minnesota is 58-66, and is 4-6 in its last 10 games.

There's zero reason for Toronto to lose any of these sets, and if they can sweep one of them, a 7-2 run to set up a massive showdown against the Milwaukee Brewers to close out August would position them quite nicely to hold on to their lead in the division throughout September.