Examining the tiebreaker scenario that still exists for the Blue Jays

On Saturday, a total of five teams around Major League Baseball successfully clinched a spot in the 2023 playoffs, including the Toronto Blue Jays. While their game against the Rays didn't exactly go as planned (Jays lost 7-5 in 10 innings), a Mariners loss resulted in the Jays automatically securing a spot in the postseason.

Now, it's just a matter of determining who will play who in the Wild Card Series. As of right now, it hasn't been fully decided if the Blue Jays will be taking on the Rays again or the Minnesota Twins to kick off the postseason. This, obviously, is fully dependent on how Sunday's games go.

Elsewhere around the league, the only division that has not been decided is the American League West, where either the Texas Rangers or Houston Astros could still win the division on the final day of the regular season.

In this scenario, one of those two teams in the AL West will take home the division crown and one will take the last remaining Wild Card spot. If the Rangers beat the Mariners on Sunday OR the Astros lose, Texas wins the division. If the Astros win and the Rangers lose, Houston wins the division since they have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Texas already secured.

If the Blue Jays win OR the Astros lose on Sunday, the Jays will have secured the second Wild Card spot. If that were to happen, the Jays would travel (or in this case, stay in) to Tampa to take on the Rays to kick off the Wild Card Series.

Here's a quick breadkown to attempt and simplify things here.

The Blue Jays will face the Rays in the following scenarios:

• Blue Jays win, Rangers win, Astros win
• Blue Jays win, Rangers win, Astros lose
• Blue Jays win, Rangers lose, Astros lose
• Blue Jays lose, Rangers win, Astros lose
• Blue Jays lose, Rangers lose, Astros lose

The Blue Jays will face the Twins in the following scenarios:

• Blue Jays win, Rangers lose, Astros wins
• Blue Jays lose, Rangers win, Astros win
• Blue Jays lose, Rangers lose, Astros win

The good thing here for the Blue Jays is that they've already punched their ticket to the postseason, now it's just a matter of finding out who they'll face. With their recent success against the Rays, arguably the tougher opponent between Tampa and Minnesota, it's worth wondering if they would be the favorable matchup here over the Twins.