Toronto Blue Jays Fight Through Grueling Division Race Where Every Game Matters
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The Toronto Blue Jays currently sit third in the American League East standings at 41-36 overall and just four games out of first.
The AL East is currently led by the New York Yankees at 45-32 despite being 3-7 in their last 10 games.
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In the AL East, four of the five teams have a winning percentage over .500 and at least 40 wins. For context, the rest of the American League only has two teams that have reached 40 wins this season — the Houston Astros and the Detroit Tigers.
The Yankees may sit at the top of the AL East, but there is only six games between them and the Boston Red Sox, who sit at fourth. The Tigers have an 8.5-game lead in the AL Central Division.
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The Blue Jays, who struggled out of the gate, have a minus-10 run differential this season. Toronto is one of three Major League teams with a winning record and negative run differential, along with the Cleveland Guardians (39-37), and the Arizona Diamondbacks (39-38).
The top two teams in the AL East are the Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees have an MLB best 110-run differential, the only team that has scored 100 or more runs than their opponents.
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The Rays sit 2.5 games behind them with a plus-70 run differential. The fact that the Jays are in the negative and right there in the race is impressive.
Every single game matters for this title race. The Jays are 4-6 in their last 10 after dropping a series to the Chicago White Sox on Sunday. No one in the division is on a significant winning streak so Toronto didn't lose much ground.
The Blue Jays are off on Monday before traveling to Cleveland to take on the Guardians. Then they will travel to Boston to take on the Red Sox. Then, Toronto gets a chance to take on the Yankees at home in a series that starts in July.
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Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.