{"id":22799,"date":"2025-07-25T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22799\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T10:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T10:12:12","slug":"blue-jays-take-first-place-in-al-after-win-vs-tigers-astros-loss-vs-athletics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22799\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays take first place in AL after win vs. Tigers, Astros loss vs. Athletics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the midst of what&#8217;s already been an outstanding month for the <a class=\"sn-team-post-link\" data-team=\"toronto-blue-jays\" data-league=\"mlb\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/toronto-blue-jays\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>, the ball club has officially climbed its way atop the American League standings.<\/p>\n<p>After an 11-4 win over the Detroit Tigers on Thursday and a 5-2 loss by the Houston Astros against the Athletics, the Blue Jays took sole possession of first place in the AL with their 61-42 record.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the first time Toronto has led the AL this late into the season since 2015 (per <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SNstats\/status\/1948572571458318407\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sportsnet stats<\/a>), a campaign that marked the first of back-to-back trips to the ALCS. The Blue Jays finished with a 93-69 regular-season record that year.<\/p>\n<p>The news also comes just one day after Toronto took down the New York Yankees to become the first team in the AL East to reach 60 wins this season.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Thursday&#8217;s victory not only propelled Toronto into the AL&#8217;s top spot, but it also marked the team&#8217;s 17th win in its last 21 outings, sixth in its last seven and improved the Blue Jays to an MLB-best 15-4 in July.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve led the majors in runs per game (6.05), OBP (.359), OPS (.835) and strikeout percentage (15.7) throughout the month, per <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SNstats\/status\/1948554254068638176\" rel=\"nofollow\">Sportsnet stats<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Toronto&#8217;s latest victory against a Detroit team that was right on its heels in the standings entering the day \u2014 now 60-44, third in the AL \u2014 came thanks to a complete team effort that included a total of nine runs between the fifth and sixth innings. The effort was punctuated by back-to-back home runs from Ernie Clement and Joey Loperfido. Meanwhile, Eric Lauer allowed only one run over eight innings, walking none and striking out six.<\/p>\n<p>The AL-leading Blue Jays return to action on Friday for the second contest of a four-game set against the Tigers in Detroit. Catch first pitch at 7:10 p.m. ET \/ 4:10 p.m. PT on Sportsnet or Sportsnet+.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/jays-4-1-640x360.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Watch Blue Jays vs. Tigers on Sportsnet\"\/>Watch Blue Jays vs. Tigers on Sportsnet<\/p>\n<p>The Toronto Blue Jays and  Detroit Tigers are set to go head-to-head in a pivotal series to establish dominance in the American League. Catch Game 2 of the four-game set on Friday at 7:10 p.m. ET \/ 4:10 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/schedule\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the midst of what&#8217;s already been an outstanding month for the Toronto Blue Jays, the ball club&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-22799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}