Blue Jays have won 9 straight, entire AL East at .500 or better

The Blue Jays are one of the hottest teams in baseball. Unfortunately for them the rest of the division has been excellent as well.

by Noah Jarosh

Jun 22, 2013, 6:14 PM UTC

Brad White

The Toronto Blue Jays are finally playing like the team many analysts expected them to be after making big splashes with trades in the offseason.

Read more Blue Jays coverage: Blue Bird Banter

Toronto has won nine straight games following sweeps against the Rangers and Rockies that were sandwiched between wins against the White Sox and Baltimore Orioles. The Blue Jays are on an AL East swing with two more games at home against Baltimore coming up before hitting the road for four games against the Tampa Bay Rays and another three against the Boston Red Sox.

Toronto is at .500 for the first time this season which is quite the feat considering it was 11 games below .500 as recently as May 10 when the team had a 13-24 record. Since that low point, however, Toronto has gone 23-12 and has been one of the hottest teams in baseball.

AL East Standings

	W	L	PCT	GB	STRK
Boston	45	31	.592	0	Won 1
Baltimore	42	32	.567	2	Lost 1
New York	40	33	.547	3.5	Won 1
Tampa Bay	38	36	.513	6	Lost 1
Toronto	36	36	.500	7	Won 9

(updated 6.22.2013 at 11:54 AM CDT)

The entire AL East has been playing well this season with all five teams now at or above .500 on the year. The only team in the division below .500 against teams outside of the AL East is the Rays, who are 12-13 against the rest of MLB.

For the most part, the division has based its success on offense as he Orioles and Rays are second and third-worst in MLB in ERA, respectively. The Yankees and Red Sox are hovering around the top-10 in ERA while the Blue Jays are currently 11th worst. Toronto has been excellent lately with an AL-best 3.12 ERA over the past month.

On the offensive side, the Red Sox (first), Orioles (third), Rays (fifth) and Blue Jays (10th) are all in the top 10 in MLB in wOBA. The Yankees are 24th, however, as New York has dealt with a myriad of injuries to stars Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez.

The last division to finish the season without one of its teams having a losing record was the 2005 NL East when all five teams finished within nine games of each other. The AL East has a long way to go before they match that season, though, as there are plenty of games left to play.