Blue Jays clinch AL East for the first time since 2015: Toronto holds off Yankees, secures No. 1 playoff seed

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his squad will have a bye to the ALDS

For the first time since 2015, the Toronto Blue Jays are AL East champions. Taking the race down to Game 162, the Blue Jays secured the division -- and the American League's No. 1 seed -- thanks to their win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday (TOR 13, TB 4). The New York Yankees will be the first wild card team as a result.

Catcher Alejandro Kirk was the hero Sunday with his first inning grand slam. He added a two-run homer later in the game.

The AL East title is Toronto's first since 2015 and only their second since winning three straight from 1991-93. The Blue Jays have not won a postseason game, let alone a postseason series, since the Bo Bichette/Vladimir Guerrero Jr. era began in 2019.

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It should be noted the Blue Jays and Yankees had already clinched postseason berths. They were both in. We just didn't know which team had won the AL East yet, and, more importantly, which team got a Wild Card Series bye. Toronto gets the division title and now gets to skip a round, which gives Bichette (knee), Chris Bassitt (back), and José Berríos (elbow) more time to heal up.

The Yankees had a seven-game lead in the AL East on May 28. They stumbled badly during the summer though, going 18-29 from June 13 to Aug. 5. The Blue Jays and Yankees played seven games in Rogers Centre in July and that's when Toronto took control of the AL East. They went 6-1 in those seven games and moved into first place.

The Blue Jays led the division by as many as 6 ½ games on July 26. They were five games up on Sept. 16. The Yankees managed to pull even earlier this week, though because they lost the season series to Toronto (5-8), the Blue Jays had the tiebreaker and always had a leg up in the division race.

New York will host the rival Boston Red Sox in the best-of-three Wild Card Series this coming week. The winner of that series will then play the Blue Jays in the ALDS. The AL West champion Seattle Mariners are locked in as the American League's No. 2 seed and get the other bye.