TORONTO — Sunday's regular season finale at Rogers Centre had a familiar look to it. It seemed as though the homestanding Toronto Blue Jays had something to play for — and the Tampa Bay Rays didn't.
The Blue Jays won in a rout, taking down the Rays 13-4 on Sunday afternoon. The win gave them the American League East title, finishing 94-68 and taking the division crown — their first since 2015 — by virtue of winning the tiebreaker with the New York Yankees.
It was an amazing accomplishment for the Jays, who were picked to finish last in the AL East. They enter the postseaon as the No. 1 seed in the American League, and will play the Detroit-Cleveland winner in the AL Division Series.
“Winning the division means a little bit more here,'' said Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman, who gave up four runs in 3 2/3 innings but then watched the bullpen allow just one hit the rest of the way. "One team for an entire country is something that I didn’t really know when I signed up to come here, but man, it’s exciting.
"You can feel the love they have for the Blue Jays. Hopefully, we can make a run at this and they talk about our team even more than the 2015 team.”
It was a disappointing end to the season for Tampa Bay, which finished 77-85, in fourth place 17 games behind Toronto. It was the second straight year they failed to make it to October after earning postseason spots for five straight seasons.
The Rays got roughed up early and often on Sunday. Starter Ian Seymour gave up five runs in the first inning. and Tampa Bay's offense mostly came from designated hitter Jonathan Aranda, who came back from a fractured wrist to play in the final series. He had an RBI single in the first and drove in two more runs in the third. Center fielder Jake Mangum drove in the fourth run.
It was 5-4 heading into the bottom of the fourth, but the Rays would get no closer. Seymour gave up another run in the fourth, and relievers Edwin Uceta, Kevin Kelly and Bryan Baker all got touched up for runs, too. Toronto catcher Alejandro Kirk — a boyhood friend of Aranda's in Mexico — was the hitting star, driving in six runs on three hits. He had a grand slam in the first inning and a two-run homer in the fifth.
It was a rough finish for Tampa Bay, who had won seven straight games from Aug. 29 to Sept. 4 and were just two games out of the wild-card race at the time. But they finished 6-16 the rest of the way and got left in the dust. Their 85 losses are the most since 2016.
“We just didn’t get it done,” Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash told reporters after the game. “Myself right at the top of the list. Just did not get it done.”
Third baseman Junior Caminero finished 1-for-4, getting an infield single in the third. He finished the year with 45 home runs, one shy of Carlos Pena's team record.
Mangum was 1-for-3 and finished with a .296 batting average. Fellow rookie Chandler Simpson, who did not play Sunday, finished at .295. Only Joey Wendle (2018) has hit over .295 as a rookie for the Rays. Mangum and Simpson were just the fourth set of rookie teammates to do it in MLB since 1930.
The Rays finished 36-45 on the road, but were 14-30 since July 4 in their back-loaded schedule. They played this season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa after Tropicana Field suffered hurricane damage last fall, going 41-40 at home. They plan to return to the Trop for the 2026 season.