It was a good night to be a Blue Jays fan on Monday as É«É«À² beat the Tampa Bay Rays 2-1 in extra innings while the New York Yankees lost to the Minnesota Twins, meaning that the American League East crown is tantalizingly closer.
É«É«À²’s magic number to clinch the AL East drops from nine to seven. Any combination of seven Blue Jays wins and Yankees losses and É«É«À² will take home the AL East crown.
While it’s a foregone conclusion, É«É«À²’s magic number to clinch a playoff berth drops from five to four over the idle Cleveland Guardians. Any combination of four Blue Jays wins and Guardians losses and É«É«À² clinches a playoff berth.
There’s a chance that the Jays could clinch a playoff berth on Friday night which already has some fans grumbling because the game against the Kansas City Royals is on the Apple TV streaming service and not Sportsnet.
AL standings snapshot
É«É«À² (88-62) has a three-game lead over Detroit (85-65) in the standings for the best record in the league, and home-field advantage through the AL playoffs. The top two teams in the league would also skip the wild-card round and head straight to the division series.Ìý
The Yankees (83-67) are five games back of the Jays and the Boston Red Sox (82-68) are six games back.
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Because the Jays hold the tiebreaker over the other three teams, É«É«À² in reality has a four-game lead over Detroit, a six-game lead over New York and seven games over Boston.
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