Blue Jays Magic Number update: Frustrations mounting as division lead slips away

The Toronto Blue Jays will be playing playoff baseball in 2025. That's really the only good news that has come out of the last week as the Blue Jays have done nothing well and nothing right has gone their way in the last three series.

Toronto is a combined 3-6 over their last nine games, and have lost a five game lead in the AL East to the New York Yankees who have gotten hot, and stayed hot when the pressure is at an all-time high. Toronto seem to be succumbing to that pressure as the frustrations are incredibly visible from players who are normally calm cool and collective.

Frustrations mounting as division lead slips

The latest example is catcher Alejandro Kirk trying to destroy his helmet after the Blue Jays 7-1 loss to the Red Sox on Wednesday night. Kirk hit what should have been a two-out single, but got thrown out at first from right field to end the game.

It perfectly encapsulates how nothing is going right for Toronto right now. Outside of the Blue Jays being on the receiving end of several blown calls by umpires and replay reviews, the baseball Gods are also tormenting Toronto. Consider on Tuesday's series opener, Toronto had an xBA of .282 while the Red Sox xBA was .218. Yet the Blue Jays collected just one run on three hits while the Red Sox won 4-1 with nine hits.

They are also watching some questionable performances from afar as the Chicago White Sox, the team with the worst record in the AL, are playing the Yankees - and are barely playing a competitive brand of baseball, gifting the Yankees with wins on back-to-back nights.

All of that has led to Toronto entering Thursday's game "tied" with the Yankees for the AL East lead. The saving grace is that Toronto holds the tie-breaker, so the Yankees still have to play one game better than Toronto to clinch the AL East. The Magic Number is still at four, with four games remaining. If the Blue Jays match the Yankees record over the final four games, they are in. They control their fate, they have all the power in their own hands, they need to, as Al Davis famously said, "Just win, baby."