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Here's every scenario of who the Blue Jays will face in the playoffs

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
|
Oct 1 2023, 6:30 pm
Here's every scenario of who the Blue Jays will face in the playoffs
Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports

In case you missed it, the Toronto Blue Jays will be heading to the playoffs once again this year.

It wasn’t pretty, but the Blue Jays punched their ticket on Saturday by way of the Seattle Mariners’ 6-1 loss to the Texas Rangers.

And while we know Toronto will be on the road for the entirety of the best-of-three Wild Card series, it’s still not quite clear where or who they’ll be playing.

Toronto holds the Wild Card tiebreaker over the Houston Astros, but the Texas Rangers hold it over the Jays, meaning today’s final day of regular season play will come to have an impact on playoff seeding.

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The most likely scenario as currently stands sees Toronto heading to their least-favourite ballpark in Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field, which would also give them the rare distinction of playing the same team in back-to-back series, something not all that common in the modern MLB.

But based on the way of three of today’s matchups — between themselves and Tampa Bay, Houston and the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the Rangers and Mariners — Toronto could find themselves in either the second or third Wild Card spot, playing either the Rays or the AL-Central winning Minnesota Twins, who sit in the American League’s third seed.

There’s eight different combinations of wins and losses between those three games, with five of those combinations seeing Toronto in the second Wild Card spot, which would see them play the Rays.

If Toronto wins today, they’ll likely face Tampa Bay, unless the Astros also win and Texas loses, which would bump the Jays into the third Wild Card spot.

If Toronto loses, they can still play Tampa Bay, but they’d also need Texas and Houston to fall today as well.

If that’s too confusing for you, here’s a handy chart for you to follow along with.

In any case, it’s just a few hours before we know what Toronto’s postseason opponent is for Game 1 to take place this Tuesday, October 3.

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