Blue Jays: Let’s start talking about the magic number

With 11 games to go in the regular season schedule, we can start talking about the Magic Number for the Blue Jays, and also the Tragic Number.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to give you a short summary. According MLB’s glossary, the Magic Number “represents the combination of wins needed by that team and losses by its closest competitor to clinch a given goal”. In this case the closest competitor would be the New York Yankees, who just half a game behind Toronto, but the Jays also have one game in hand on the Bronx Bombers.

Talking about the magic number is a little premature when the Yankees are this close behind them, but it still gives us an idea of what the Blue Jays have to do in order to secure their playoff spot. With 11 games to go, a combination of six wins for them along with five losses for the Yankees would mean the Blue Jays would get the second Wild Card spot. That scenario would leave the Jays with a record of 91-71, and the Yankees one game behind at 90-72.

After a hard fought win on Tuesday night, not much changed in the Wild Card picture other than the window of opportunity that the Yankees and possibly the Oakland A’s will have to catch up. All three of the Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays won their games, but the A’s were losing to the Mariners as of this writing on Tuesday due to their late start on the West Coast. In this context, the Blue Jays entered Tuesday night’s schedule with a Magic Number of 12, and their win lowered that mark to 11 while a Yankee win prevented it from dropping further.

On the other hand, their “Tragic Number” (which isn’t really an official thing, at least by MLB glossary standards) would be 12 for the Wild Card, and just four games for the AL East. The concept of a Tragic Number is basically the opposite of a Magic Number. For example, if the Jays went 5-6 over their last 11 games (dropping six of them) they would finish 90-72, and if the Yankees went 6-4 they would be 91-71. The combination of six Blue Jay losses along with six Yankee wins brings us to the Tragic Number of 12.

The Blue Jays are 7.5 games back of the Rays for first in the division race even after Tuesday night’s win, and it would take a full-on collapse from Tampa Bay to see the Jays catch them now. With that in mind, we can probably keep an exclusive eye on the Wild Card race.

The good news is that the Blue Jays will have a head to head opportunity to play the Yankees to finish off the month from September 28-30. The last time these two teams met the Blue Jays came away with a sweep, and that result would give the Jays six games toward their Magic Number of 11. When you consider that the Yankees also have to play the Red Sox and Rays for three games each before the end of the year, the Blue Jays are in a strong position.