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Written by Zoe Levesque & Eloise Bramer, 10/15/2025
The Toronto Blue Jays won their division for the first time in ten years. How did they do it?
Ten years ago the Blue Jays won their division, but since then, the Blue Jays have not been a division winning team. They have lacked the players and the drive to make it far enough to win it all, and with many bad wild card games, this season didn’t look promising either.
Coming into the season the Blue Jays were without an encouraging lineup. Toronto’s star first baseman and major hitter, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s contract was going to end after the 2025 season. Without him on the team, their chances of the postseason would’ve made the prospects for this season slim. Fortunately, in early April of 2025, the Blue Jays secured Guerrero with one of the richest contracts in MLB history, a 14-year, $500 million deal. This sum surprised many fans, including me, though it was a welcome surprise knowing that the team would have such a strong player with them for many years to come.
When the season started Toronto was not looking like a division winning team. There was no hope that the team could turn the season around. Teams play around 160 games a season, and after their first 54 games they had lost 28 of them, making them last in the AL East (Atlantic League). But, over the next month, the Blue Jays were able to win most of their games, including a 4 game sweep against the New York Yankees from June 30 to July 3, 2025. After winning these games they were somehow at the top of the AL East, which gave Toronto fans hope of a strong rest of the season.
Between the three games won against the Yankees, last Wednesday, Toronto has had one really big advantage over other teams in the league, comeback wins. These wins are counted as anytime the Blue Jays are losing a game and then comeback to win the game. As of October 9, the Jays have had 47 comeback wins, the highest across Major League Baseball, with 5 of them coming in the 9th inning. This ability to win at any point in the game regardless of how the other team is performing has made the Jays an unstoppable force when coming into the postseason, and without winning half of those games, there would be no chance for the Jays to be as far along in the season as they are.
One underrated part of the Toronto team that needs to be highlighted is their pitchers. Even though some pitchers aren’t doing as great this late in the season, (Bieber in particular) others like Gausman, Scherzer, and 22 year old Trey Yesavage, who is straight out of the minor leagues, are really playing their best. Trey has gone up four divisions this season, which is very uncommon, and has shown real potential. With only four starts this year, Yesavage has already proved to be a great pitcher that we can expect to see a lot more of in the coming weeks. He started in the second game of the Atlantic League Division Series against the Yankees and struck out 11 batters, the highest Toronto has ever seen in a rookie during the postseason.
Even though the Blue Jays have been doing great recently they are down one of their best players. Sadly, on September 6th, Bo Bichette, our shortstop, was sliding home during a game between the Blue Jays and the Yankees when his shin hit the catcher's knee. This led to a knee sprain and being put on the injury list for ten days. It has been over 10 days since he was hurt but his knee has not recovered. The Blue Jays have confirmed that Bichette won’t be returning to play until the postseason. This is harsh news for the team because of the tremendous success Bichette has brought to the Jays including 18 home runs among many other winning attributes.
I don’t think anyone expected the Toronto Blue Jays to be so close to winning their division or even making it into the playoffs after such a bad start to the year. On September 21, the Jays were able to clinch a playoff position and on the 28th they were able to win the division for the first time in ten years. This was a tremendous effort from every member of the team even in the last week when it looked like they weren’t going to win. A few weeks ago, the Jays were five games up over the Yankees but lost a few crucial games this past week and alongside a long win streak by New York, this made every last game imperative to winning the division. After losing two games in a row, the Jays needed to win their next four games. (don’t worry they did) With this incredible final week winning surge they were able to win the division and we can only wait to see how far into the postseason they can make it.
On the 8th of October, the Blue Jays were able to win their third game against the New York Yankees and win the Atlantic League East Division Series. This might sound confusing as we have already mentioned how the Jays won the division so to clarify they were the top team in the AL East during the regular season. This set them up to play against the Yankees in the postseason where they won the AL East.
Of the three games they won against the Yankees in this series, the team played very well, especially Vladimir Guerrero Jr. who scored three home runs breaking his 21 day streak of no home runs. With the momentum from these home runs he was able to help the team win the first two games of the season by over 6 runs each. Now that Guerrero is back to his regular success level we can expect to see a lot more of him in the Jays next series against the Seattle Mariners that started on October 12. Go Jays Go!
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