MLB Announces Blue Jays' Clinch Update on Friday

Still, the first step for the Blue Jays remains punching their ticket to the postseason, and MLB shared an update on how it’s possible on Friday.

If the Blue Jays win their matchup with the Kansas City Royals, and if the Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers or Boston Red Sox lose, they will clinch a playoff berth today. (h/t MLB.com's Keegan Matheson)

The reasoning behind this is that if Toronto wins, they improve to 90 total wins on the season. On the surface, even if the Red Sox, Guardians or Tigers lose, all of them would still have the ability to surpass or at least match 90 total wins. However, the Tigers have series against both the Guardians and the Red Sox to finish out the regular season — and MLB has crunched the numbers, the possible outcomes and the tiebreakers — revealing that it is mathematically impossible for Toronto to miss out on the postseason if two of these teams lose on Friday.

This is a realistic possibility, and it’s exciting for the Blue Jays to be so close to taking the first step toward a World Series title. However, the Blue Jays still have larger goals in the regular season, including clinching the AL East and a first-round bye. The magic number for clinching the AL East is six — meaning that the number will go down one if either the Blue Jays win or the Yankees lose. The two teams could both finish with identical records, however, Toronto owns the tiebreaker if that’s the case giving them the division crown.

Toronto likely just needs to hold their ground as October approaches, and they’ll finish with a top-two seed — giving them an automatic pass through the wild card series, something the franchise has not accomplished since 2016.