Few people realized that the Blue Jays could have clinched on Thursday. It was almost a repeat of what happened 10 years ago.
Magic numbers
The New York Yankees fell 4-2 to the Baltimore Orioles, which means Toronto’s magic number to clinch the American League East drops to five.
Any combination of º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøwins and New York losses adding to five would give the Jays the division. That means the earliest the Jays can clinch would be Tuesday night when they host the Boston Red Sox.
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The Jays’ magic number to clinch a playoff berth remains at three.
But thanks to some mathematically inclined baseball fans on social media, Major League Baseball confirmed that the Blue Jays could have actually clinched on Friday night had they won, and two of Cleveland, Boston and Detroit lost. That’s because those three teams chasing º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøstill play each other over the season’s last week meaning they were guaranteed to lose some games, leading to complicated tiebreaking scenarios.
Toronto’s 20-1 loss made that scenario moot. Meanwhile, Cleveland and Boston won Friday night, while Detroit lost..Ìý
AL standings snapshot
º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍø(89-65) has a three-game lead over the Yankees (86-68) in the AL East and is four games ahead of both the free-falling Detroit Tigers (85-69) and Seattle Mariners (85-69) among division leaders.
*The Jays hold the tiebreaker over the other three teams
**The top two division winners in the league skip the wild-card round and head straight to the division series.
Blue Jays
Remaining games: 8
Home games: 6 — Red Sox (3), Rays (3)
Road games: 2 — Royals (2)
Yankees
Remaining games: 8
Home games: 6 — White Sox (3), Orioles (3)
Road games: 2 — Orioles (2)
Tigers
Remaining games: 8
Home games: 2 — Braves (2)
Road games: 6 — Guardians (3), Red Sox (3)
Patrick Ho is Deputy Sports Editor for the Star. He is based in
Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: .
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