Blue Jays Magic Number Update: How Toronto can clinch tonight vs. Royals

Buckle up, Blue Jays fans, it may be time to have a toast.

Tonight's game against the Kansas City Royals will mark the first opportunity for the Toronto Blue Jays to clinch their first playoff spot in two years, and fourth time in six years.

Although the magic number remains at three, the Blue Jays can clinch their spot with a win plus two of three scenarios: a Boston Red Sox loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, a Detroit Tigers loss to the Atlanta Braves, and a Cleveland Guardians loss to the Minnesota Twins.

Initially, the Blue Jays and Royals game was supposed to be exclusive to Apple TV. However, after the playoff scenario presented itself for Friday, Sportsnet worked up a deal with Apple to simulcast the game, allowing next Friday's contest against the Rays to be exclusive to Apple.

Blue Jays chance to clinch tonight is slim, but not impossible

While the Blue Jays don't entirely hold their fate to officially make them a playoff team (a loss tonight means Toronto waits another day), it certainly hasn't been ideal for the bats to go quiet in their recent back-to-back losses against the Rays. The Blue Jays are looking for that bounce-back win with Max Scherzer on the mound to get back on the right track once again.

The Guardians are entering their weekend series against the Twins hot. They've currently won seven straight games, which includes a massive sweep of AL Central leader Detroit Tigers, and are one and a half games out of the wild card. After overtaking the Texas Rangers in the wild card race, they're now trying to overtake a slumping Red Sox and steal the last playoff spot.

As for the Tigers, they're 3-7 in their last ten games and are now suddenly trying to hang on to the division lead they've had since April 23. While Fangraphs has Detroit's odds to win the division at 91.1% as of September 19, the last thing the Tigers need is for a last-minute scare from the Guardians and fall back to the wild card round (just like the Blue Jays).

Finally, the Red Sox have also been struggling as of late, especially since the loss of Roman Anthony due to an oblique injury two weeks ago. Recently coming off back-to-back series losses this past week and losing valuable ground in the AL East division race, they face a Rays team that has nothing to lose. The Rays' bats came alive against the Blue Jays and managed to shut out the first-place Blue Jays in the series finale.

Will Toronto become the first American League team to qualify for the playoffs, or will fans have to wait another day to make it official? First pitch against the Royals is at 7:40 pm EST.