Blue Jays fans said they’re feeling optimistic their team can make it all the way to the World Series this year after the club clinched the American League East Sunday.
The Jays defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 13-4 to win the division title for the first time since 2015 in front of a sellout crowd of 42,083 at Rogers Centre on the last day of the regular season.
Fans streaming out of the stadium after the game were in full celebration mode, saying they never lost faith in their team, even during some tense moments.
Seana Baker came to Sunday’s game from Whitby with her mother, Kerry Delaney.
She said she was anxious heading into Sunday afternoon — and when the Rays almost erased the Jays’ early four-run lead in the 3rd inning — but was confident the Blue Jays could pull off a win.
“They’ve come back, had so many comebacks all season that I knew that when they had to win, I knew they were going to pull through and they were going to do it,” Baker said.
Delaney said the energy inside the stadium buoyed that confidence.
“You can hear the people in our section around the sixth inning, everybody’s chanting ‘AL East.’ We knew it was going to end like this,” she said.
Both women said they think the Jays can ride this momentum all the way to the World Series.
“We’re going for it,” Baker said.
That belief was shared by Nav Singh, who said he’s already got tickets to Game 2 of the best-of-five American League Division Series (ALDS) against the winner of the New York-Boston wildcard matchup, where the Jays will have home-field advantage.
“They deliver amazing home field advantage. That’s what we need. So we got it. They play great in this ballpark,” he said.
“I think we’re going right to the [American League] finals.”
The Toronto Blue Jays will enter the MLB playoffs as American League East Division title winners for the first time since 2015 after a decisive 13-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
Home field advantage a huge boost, super fan says
The Jays will be making their first ALDS appearance since 2016. Sunday’s victory also completed a remarkable worst-to-first turnaround from this time last year. Toronto finished 94-68 on the season, a 20-win jump from the disappointing 2024 campaign.
Harrison Freedman, a self-described Blue Jays super fan, said securing a bye to the division series is a huge — and rare — opportunity for the team, so much so that he said he was contemplating getting a tattoo to commemorate Sunday’s win.
“I mean, it’s not something that happens very often and, who knows, might not ever happen [again] in my lifetime,” he told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning host David Common Monday.
The Toronto Blue Jays are heading to the post-season and fans could not be more excited. Christina Austin is a fan from Waterloo, Zach Zettel is a fan from Kitchener and Liz McGuire is a fan who splits her time between Guelph and Toronto and is also co-host of the Jays podcast Bird Watching. They shared their favourite moments from this year’s season so far.
Freedman said he believes that securing home field advantage in the division series is as significant as getting a bye past the first round.
“We’re the best team in baseball at home, there’s no doubt about it. And I mean, that’s because of the fans, right?,” he said.
“We’ve got an entire country that is supporting one team. That doesn’t happen in any other sport, and you can feel the energy, you can feel the vibe, and that’s why they play so well.”
The Blue Jays flag was raised at Toronto City Hall Monday morning to celebrate the team’s success.
Mayor Olivia Chow congratulated the team and said the city was behind them all the way, before leading city officials in a chant of “Let’s Go Blue Jays!”
“This is, was and continues to be a true team effort. Your city is so proud of you and we know you’ll do us proud in the playoffs,” she said.
The Niagara Falls Illumination Board is also joining in on the celebrations, saying in a news release it will honour the Jays’ division win by lighting up the falls in blue and white Monday night, starting at 10 p.m.
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