Blue Jays can clinch an unlikely playoff spot tonight

The Blue Jays magic number is one.

All the boys in blue need to do is win one of their last four games and they will qualify for the American League post-season.

The first chance for the Blue Jays to do that will come tonight in their series finale against the New York Yankees at Sahlen Field in Buffalo.

First pitch flies at 6:37 p.m. on both Sportsnet and Sportsnet 590 the FAN.

A win by the Jays would not only book them a place in the first-round, but it would also keep them alive in the race for second in the American League East.

The Blue Jays finish the season with a three-game series against Baltimore this weekend, also in Toronto’s home-away-from-home in Buffalo.

It’s the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels who are still chasing the Jays for the final wildcard spot. Both of those teams are off tonight. The Mariners begin a four-game series tomorrow against Oakland, while the Angels have three games left against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Either the Mariners or the Angels would have to win all of their remaining game to have any chance of bumping the Jays out.

At 29-27, the Blue Jays can do no worse than finishing in a tie for the eighth and final post-season spot, but they would lose a tiebreaker to both the Angels, who are 3½ games back, and Mariners, who are four off the pace.

The first tiebreaker is intra-division record and for the Blue Jays to end up in a tie with Seattle, they’d have to lose out, leaving them 19-21 versus the AL East, while the Mariners would need to win out, ending up at 22-18 against the AL West.

The Angels, meanwhile, are already finished in the division at 19-21, so if they finished level with the Jays, the two teams would go to a second tiebreaker, which is record in the last 20 divisional games. In that scenario, the Blue Jays would be 8-12 to the Angels 12-8.

If the Jays do qualify for the post-season, it will be their first berth since 2016 and the eighth in franchise history.