Blue Jays lose sole possession of AL East lead after loss to Red Sox, Yankees win

One of the Blue Jays' worst skids of the season has come at a most inopportune time.

A 7-1 loss to Boston on Wednesday night, coupled with the Yankees' 8-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, left Toronto and New York tied for first place in the American League East Division standings.

The Blue Jays have dropped six of their last seven games. A five-game lead has vanished in just over a week.

Toronto (90-68) has a tiebreaker advantage over New York and still controls its own destiny with a magic number of four with four games left to play.

A direct berth to the division series hangs in the balance with the second-place finisher forced into a wild-card series.

"It feels like the sky is falling right now and it's not," said Blue Jays manager John Schneider, throwing in an F-bomb for good measure. "I mean we've got 90 wins, we're in the playoffs and if the season ended today, (we're) winning the AL East. So I want them to come out (Thursday) and not press."

Blue Jays starter Max Scherzer gave up three runs in the first inning and allowed a Masataka Yoshida solo shot in the fifth. Carlos Narvaez iced it with a three-run blast in the eighth inning off reliever Jose Berrios.

Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet kept the Rogers Centre crowd of 39,438 hushed by limiting the Blue Jays to three hits over eight shutout innings.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a solo homer for Toronto in the ninth. The Red Sox outhit the Blue Jays 12-4.

It can be easy to forget that Toronto's slumbering offence leads the major leagues in several statistical categories. The Blue Jays also have the best home record in the AL at 50-27 and still own the first seed in the AL playoff picture.

If the bats wake up, this valley will be quickly forgotten. But that's a big if after