2025 Playoff Chase & Standings Watch

[JN]

We area not the only AL Contender with a tough matchup this weekend.

Boston at San Diego
Houston at Yankees
Philly at Texas

Teams with Easier Matchups
Angels at Detroit
Cleveland at CWS
Tampa at Seattle

First Round Bye - +3.5 Games vs Houston
AL East - +4.0 vs Boston
Final Wildcard - +8.0 (Texas and Cleveland)

[Parataxis]

We area not the only AL Contender with a tough matchup this weekend.

Boston at San Diego
Houston at Yankees
Philly at Texas

Teams with Easier Matchups
Angels at Detroit
Cleveland at CWS
Tampa at Seattle

First Round Bye - +3.5 Games vs Houston
AL East - +4.0 vs Boston
Final Wildcard - +8.0 (Texas and Cleveland)

Can't believe the schedule is forcing me to cheer for the Yankees. This feels like targeted discrimination or something.

[duppyy]

I like to check this site (admittedly even early in the season lol) to look at the magic numbers

https://www.playoffstatus.com/mlb/americanwinmagicnumbers.html]

Still early to be looking at magic numbers but 42 wins to clinch 3rd seed.

[WuTang_OG]

honestly nothing better than jays winning and competing for a pennant

[pingpongrac]

honestly nothing better than jays winning and competing for a pennant

I used to go to afternoon Saturday games with my dad pretty frequently when I'd visit him every other weekend. The team was pretty much always floating around .500, but tickets were cheap because they were never really in playoff contention with the Yankees and Red Sox (then eventually the Rays) winning 90+ games year in year out. When I finally got the chance to see them playing playoff baseball in October of 2015, I jumped on a single ticket (which was all I could afford as a broke college student lol) for game 5 of the ALDS. Witnessing the Bautista bat flip and everything else in that wild 7th inning was enough to satisfy me for a while, but after a decade it's time for the Jays to make some noise in the playoffs again. This summer feels a lot like 2015 and while they don't have quite the same amount of star power, I think they're just as well-suited for a deep run.

Super excited for this series against the Dodgers in LA. We've seen this matchup a few times over the past few years, but I don't recall it happening so late in the season and with both teams playing like contenders. I wish Sunday's game was in the primetime ESPN slot.

[WuTang_OG]

honestly nothing better than jays winning and competing for a pennant

I used to go to afternoon Saturday games with my dad pretty frequently when I'd visit him every other weekend. The team was pretty much always floating around .500, but tickets were cheap because they were never really in playoff contention with the Yankees and Red Sox (then eventually the Rays) winning 90+ games year in year out. When I finally got the chance to see them playing playoff baseball in October of 2015, I jumped on a single ticket (which was all I could afford as a broke college student lol) for game 5 of the ALDS. Witnessing the Bautista bat flip and everything else in that wild 7th inning was enough to satisfy me for a while, but after a decade it's time for the Jays to make some noise in the playoffs again. This summer feels a lot like 2015 and while they don't have quite the same amount of star power, I think they're just as well-suited for a deep run.

Super excited for this series against the Dodgers in LA. We've seen this matchup a few times over the past few years, but I don't recall it happening so late in the season and with both teams playing like contenders. I wish Sunday's game was in the primetime ESPN slot.

I was at bat flip game too. That 7th inning was the most chaotic sequence iv ever seen in any professional sports game

[pingpongrac]

honestly nothing better than jays winning and competing for a pennant

I used to go to afternoon Saturday games with my dad pretty frequently when I'd visit him every other weekend. The team was pretty much always floating around .500, but tickets were cheap because they were never really in playoff contention with the Yankees and Red Sox (then eventually the Rays) winning 90+ games year in year out. When I finally got the chance to see them playing playoff baseball in October of 2015, I jumped on a single ticket (which was all I could afford as a broke college student lol) for game 5 of the ALDS. Witnessing the Bautista bat flip and everything else in that wild 7th inning was enough to satisfy me for a while, but after a decade it's time for the Jays to make some noise in the playoffs again. This summer feels a lot like 2015 and while they don't have quite the same amount of star power, I think they're just as well-suited for a deep run.

Super excited for this series against the Dodgers in LA. We've seen this matchup a few times over the past few years, but I don't recall it happening so late in the season and with both teams playing like contenders. I wish Sunday's game was in the primetime ESPN slot.

I was at bat flip game too. That 7th inning was the most chaotic sequence iv ever seen in any professional sports game

I remember that 7th inning taking what felt like an hour and a half. Capped off that crazy night by jogging to Hard Luck as soon as the final out was recorded to see two of my favourite bands at the time lol.

[Asianiac_24]

I still think the 2015 Jays is a vastly more talented team than this one. If you re-run that playoffs run 100 times, I believe we would have came out on top the most out of every team. That team had a Dodgers/Yankees like lineup. Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion/Tulo lineup is just insane

[Chris7711]

We area not the only AL Contender with a tough matchup this weekend.

Boston at San Diego
Houston at Yankees
Philly at Texas

Teams with Easier Matchups
Angels at Detroit
Cleveland at CWS
Tampa at Seattle

First Round Bye - +3.5 Games vs Houston
AL East - +4.0 vs Boston
Final Wildcard - +8.0 (Texas and Cleveland)

Can't believe the schedule is forcing me to cheer for the Yankees. This feels like targeted discrimination or something.

I completely forgot about Houston and first round bye. By mistake I was happy yanks are losing. Just realized I should be cheering for n.y. so used to cheering against the yanks

[JN]

We area not the only AL Contender with a tough matchup this weekend.

Boston at San Diego
Houston at Yankees
Philly at Texas

Teams with Easier Matchups
Angels at Detroit
Cleveland at CWS
Tampa at Seattle

First Round Bye - +3.5 Games vs Houston
AL East - +4.0 vs Boston
Final Wildcard - +8.0 (Texas and Cleveland)

Can't believe the schedule is forcing me to cheer for the Yankees. This feels like targeted discrimination or something.

I completely forgot about Houston and first round bye. By mistake I was happy yanks are losing. Just realized I should be cheering for n.y. so used to cheering against the yanks

In the end the biggest threat for the first round bye will probably come from the Boston Red Sox, and not winnning the AL East (i.e the Sox will be ahead of one of the two other division leaders in W-L record)

[T-d0t]

after all that anguish in game 1&2 and the stress in game 3, Blue Jays are still 4 games up(5 if you count tie breaker) on the Redsox. Goodnight!

[LBJKB24MJ23]

Jays lose
Red Sox lose
Yankees lose

[brwnman]

I still think the 2015 Jays is a vastly more talented team than this one. If you re-run that playoffs run 100 times, I believe we would have came out on top the most out of every team. That team had a Dodgers/Yankees like lineup. Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion/Tulo lineup is just insane

In terms of talent, it's not particularly close. 2015 Jays were a different animal after the trade deadline.

This is a combination of a weak AL East, weaker AL in general and some smoke and mirrors on the Jays part. A lot of the Jays' success has come from facing the teams at the right time. There is a clear difference between the Jays and the top teams in the Majors right now. In 2015, Jays were the top team in the Majors.

[-MetA4-]

I still think the 2015 Jays is a vastly more talented team than this one. If you re-run that playoffs run 100 times, I believe we would have came out on top the most out of every team. That team had a Dodgers/Yankees like lineup. Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion/Tulo lineup is just insane

In terms of talent, it's not particularly close. 2015 Jays were a different animal after the trade deadline.

This is a combination of a weak AL East, weaker AL in general and some smoke and mirrors on the Jays part. A lot of the Jays' success has come from facing the teams at the right time. There is a clear difference between the Jays and the top teams in the Majors right now. In 2015, Jays were the top team in the Majors.

Ahhh, right - that's it! We're just facing all of these teams that we are beating "at the right time" LOL.

[brwnman]

Not all, but timing and luck has played a factor into the Jays record.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6505466/2025/07/22/mlbs-luckiest-unluckiest-teams-yankees-red-sox-odds/

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/ranking/luck-by-other

And I think Jays are either 1st or 2nd in favourable calls right alongside Detroit.

[JN]

3 numbers I am looking at

Lead for First Round Bye (1.5 over Houston)
AL East Lead - 3.5 (New York)
Lead for Final Playoff Spot - 7.0 (Texas)

The numbers have all improved the last 2 weeks since this post and the Jays going 8-4.

First Round Bye - 3.5 over Houston (instead of 1.5)
AL East - 5.0 over Boston (instead of 3.5 over New York)
Final Playoff Spot - 8.0 over Cleveland (instead of 7.0 over Texas)

The Yanks fell from 3.5 back to 6.5 back.
And the Rangers have imploded falling from 7.0 back to 11.0 games back.

[Tacoma]

Not all, but timing and luck has played a factor into the Jays record.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6505466/2025/07/22/mlbs-luckiest-unluckiest-teams-yankees-red-sox-odds/

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/ranking/luck-by-other

And I think Jays are either 1st or 2nd in favourable calls right alongside Detroit.

Of your 2 links, NY Times had Baltimore #2 vs. the other list had Baltimore at #25. NY Times had Dodgers at #4 vs. other list had them at last (#30). And is it all that surprising that a NY newspaper had the Yankees as unluckiest of all?

Basically, these lists are wildly inconsistent because it depends on biased opinions of the writers making the list & how they define/assess luck. E.g., to me, the Dodgers are the luckiest because they play in LA. I mean, if it was the Minnesota Dodgers, would Ohtani & others have signed there?

[brwnman]

Yet both had Jays at 1 and a third stat had Jays in the top 2. So while you can contest ‘luck’ for other teams, Jays have had their share of luck this season no matter how you slice it. It’s not the only reason they are first, but it has played a role in it.

[Randle McMurphy]

There's no doubt we're luck merchants. We've won 3 games by one run this week where we were decidedly the worse team for the duration of each of those games.

Embrace it, it doesn't get any better than that.

[pingpongrac]

At the very least, we'll go 5-4 in this 9-game stretch against the Dodgers, Cubs and Rangers. It's going to be tough to get the sweep tomorrow with Eovaldi on the mound for Texas, but 6-3 would be pretty damn impressive after dropping the first two games in LA. Good chance to put some more distance between the Red Sox/Yankees over the next 10 days.