Blue Jays outfielder George Springer motions for teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to dive to home plate as they score on Ernie Clement’s double in É«É«À²’s win over Baltimore on Sunday.
Blue Jays outfielder George Springer motions for teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to dive to home plate as they score on Ernie Clement’s double in É«É«À²’s win over Baltimore on Sunday.
With just two weeks left in the regular season, let’s take a look at the magic number needed for the É«É«À² Blue Jays to clinch a playoff berth first, and then the American League East.
Sunday’s win at the Rogers Centre capped a 5-1 homestand that started with bad news.
É«É«À²’s magic number to clinch a playoff berth is five. Any combination of five Jays wins or Cleveland Guardians losses and É«É«À² makes the playoffs.
Another way to think about it is this: If É«É«À² (87-62) wins only five more games while the Guardians (78-71) win all their remaining 13 games, the Jays would end up with 92 wins while Cleveland would have 91. É«É«À² doesn’t have the tiebreaker between the two teams.
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(É«É«À²’s magic number against the 79-71 Texas Rangers is four because the Jays own that tiebreaker.)
Making the playoffs for the Jays has been all but certain for the last month so that’s a little anticlimactic. But considering the Jays’ playoff hopes virtually ended before the trade deadline last year and the team was eliminated on the last day of the 2021 regular season, it’s still something to celebrate.
What fans really care about is the magic number to win the division. The Yankees fell to 83-66 with their loss on Sunday night to the Red Sox, moving the Jays’ magic number to win the AL East to nine. Any combination of nine Jays wins or Yankees losses and É«É«À² wins the division.Â
In other words, if É«É«À² wins only nine more games while the Yankees win all 13 of their remaining games, they would each end up with 96 wins. É«É«À² owns the tiebreaker so first place would go to Jays.Â
*MLB has eliminated the winner-take-all game (Game 163) to determine who gets the tiebreaker.Â
When he is officially added for Monday’s road series opener against the Rays, the Jays will
AL standings snapshot
É«É«À² has a 2.5-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.Â
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The Yankees are four games back of the Jays and the Boston Red Sox (82-68) are 5.5 games back.
Because the Jays hold the tiebreaker over the other three teams, É«É«À² in reality has a 3.5-game lead over Detroit, a five-game lead over New York and 6.5 games over Boston.
Baltimore Orioles analyst Brian Kelly made comments following the Blue Jays fans’ reaction to a
-
Tigers
Remaining games:Ìý12
Strength of schedule:Ìý.498
É«É«À² games: 6 — Guardians (3), Braves (3)
Road games: 6 — Guardians (3), Red Sox (3)
SOURCE: Strength of schedule asÂ
Correction
Sept 15, 2025 — This story has been updated from a previously published version to correct that the magic number for É«É«À² to clinch a playoff berth is five, not four. While the Blue Jays own the tiebreaker against Texas, they don’t own the tiebreaker against Cleveland which has played one less game than the Rangers.Â
Patrick Ho is Deputy Sports Editor for the Star. He is based in
É«É«À². Follow him on Twitter: .
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