TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays capped a turnaround from worst to first by holding off the New York Yankees to win the American League East on the final day of MLB’s 2025 regular season, their first division title in a decade and the seventh in franchise history.
“The job is not finished,” slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. said after a 13-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays that clinched the division crown and secured a bye into the divisional round of the playoffs next weekend. “We’ve got to continue to play hard and play good baseball.”
The Blue Jays finished 74-88 a season ago, last in the AL East and 20 games behind the first-place Yankees, who reached the World Series.
“I think everybody believed that last year was not who we were as a team,” Toronto outfielder George Springer said. “From day one of spring training you could kind of feel the vibe.”
This year, a four-game sweep of New York from June 30 to July 3 was part of a season-best 10-game winning streak that vaulted Toronto into the division lead for good.
“Once we kind of hit our stride, we didn’t think anyone could beat us,” manager John Schneider said. “This is, in my opinion, the toughest division in the game. I don’t think anyone, besides the people that are here soaking wet like me, expected us to be in this position.”
Toronto lost six of seven down the stretch, falling into a first-place tie with New York, but held on to the top spot in the division and the AL by winning its final four games.
“We almost broke at the end, but from that point on, we didn’t break in the division,” Schneider said. “That was obviously a huge four games for us.”
The Blue Jays won eight of 13 meetings with the Yankees this season, giving them the tiebreaker after both teams finished 94-68. Toronto will have home-field advantage for the duration of the AL portion of the playoffs.
Springer hit one of four home runs by the Blue Jays in Sunday’s rout, his latest drive in a productive season that seemed unlikely in 2024, when the 2017 World Series MVP struggled through one of the worst years of his career while hitting just .220.
“I can’t say enough about him,” Schneider said. “Fitting that his last at-bat was a home run. He’s the heart and soul of our team. He’s infectious when he plays and he’s infectious in the clubhouse.”
The Yankees won 3-2 at home against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday, doing their part to try to take the division, but Toronto’s victory denied them. New York started the season 35-20, slumped during a 25-34 stretch, then closed 34-14.
The Yankees will host the Boston Red Sox — who finished third in the AL East at 89-73 — in a best-of-three series in the wild-card round. Toronto will face the winner in the divisional round, giving the Blue Jays a valuable opportunity to rest and recover while its potential foes battle in the Bronx this week.
Arguably no one needs the break more than shortstop Bo Bichette. The two-time AL hits leader and two-time MLB All-Star hasn’t played since Sept. 6, when he injured his left knee in a collision with Yankees catcher Austin Wells.
“It’s kind of exactly what we needed,” Schneider said of the five-day break that’s ahead before the next game. “I hope that (Bichette) gets a chance to contribute to this. He’s been instrumental to what we’ve been doing here the last six years.”
Bichette has been hitting off a tee and throwing but has yet to resume running.
“Every day I’m feeling better,” Bichette said. “I’ll be doing everything that I possibly can to get back.”
Toronto hasn’t won a postseason game since losing the ALCS to the Cleveland Indians in 2016. The Blue Jays earned wild-card berths in 2020, 2022 and 2023 but were swept all three times.
Cleveland wins AL Central
CLEVELAND — It was fitting in many ways that Brayan Rocchio hit the walk-off homer that put an exclamation point on the Cleveland Guardians’ historic run to this year’s AL Central title.
Even though Cleveland had secured its 13th division crown in the eighth inning of Sunday’s home game against the Texas Rangers when the Detroit Tigers lost to the Red Sox, the Guardians weren’t content to finish in a tie atop the standings and win the division on a tiebreaker.
Cleveland rallied from two runs down to force extra innings. Texas pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez put the Rangers up 8-5 with a three-run homer in the 10th, but the Guardians came back again with Bo Naylor’s RBI double in the bottom half and then Rocchio’s three-run drive down the right-field line that hit the foul pole and gave them a 9-8 victory.
“It’s incredible. I think not only because of the homer and the walk off, but knowing that we were going to win the division the right way. We knew we had at that point, but winning the game was really important for us,” Rocchio said through an interpreter in the celebratory Cleveland clubhouse.
The second baseman has symbolized the Guardians’ second-half rally.
Rocchio was a Gold Glove finalist at shortstop and a catalyst in Cleveland’s run to the ALCS. last season. But he started this year batting .165 in 35 games before being optioned to Triple-A Columbus on May 12. Since being recalled on July 1, Rocchio not only rediscovered his hitting stroke, he moved to second base.
His .257 batting average the last three months of the season was second on the team to José Ramírez (.258). Rocchio also was third on the club in RBIs (36) and doubles (15).
“He’s been one of our best hitters since he’s come back. And for him to hit that walk-off, it’s super emblematic of our season,” second-year manager Stephen Vogt said. “We never quit. Every setback is an opportunity to get better, and Rocchio embodies that better than anybody.”
The Guardians hope Rocchio provides the same offensive spark he did during the postseason last year. The 24-year-old Venezuelan infielder went 11-for-33 in 10 games, including an eight-game hitting streak.
In last year’s series against Detroit in the divisional round, Rocchio was 6-for-16 with an RBI.
The Guardians and Tigers will meet in the playoffs for the second straight season, this time in a best-of-three series in the wild-card rounds that opens Tuesday in Cleveland. The Guardians won the season series, taking eight of the 13 games, including five of the last six.
Cleveland not only has the largest comeback to win a division or league championship in MLB history, it also produced the largest September rally.
Cleveland was 40-48 and 15 1/2 games behind Detroit on July 6 before beginning the long climb back.
The 1914 Boston Braves were 15 games back in the National League on July 4 and rallied to win by 10 1/2 games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Since the majors went to division play in 1969, the biggest deficit overcome had been 14 games by the 1978 Yankees to win the AL East.
On Sept. 4, the Guardians were 69-70 and 11 games behind the Tigers before going 15-1, including a 10-game winning streak that included a three-game sweep in Detroit. The previous September mark was 8 1/2 games by the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals.
It is Cleveland’s 13th AL Central title, but the first time the club has won back-to-back titles since winning three straight from 2016-18.
“Obviously, yesterday was special making the playoffs, but to actually finish the job in a division where we were almost mathematically eliminated, for that to happen was pretty special,” catcher Austin Hedges said. “But like I said, we wanted to do it on our terms and go win the game.”
Two of three AL divisions were on the line Sunday after the Seattle Mariners clinched the West crown Wednesday night.