How past Blue Jays squads have fared in the ALCS

Across nearly a half-century of Blue Jays baseball, the team has made it to the post-season on 11 occasions — including this year.

This Sunday, the Blue Jays begin the American League Championship Series (ALCS) — a playoff rung that Toronto last reached in 2016. They'll be up against the Seattle Mariners, who knocked out the Detroit Lions on Friday night.

The Jays beat the Yankees in the American League Division Series (ALDS) to get to this next step in the playoffs.

The Blue Jays have been to the ALCS on seven previous occasions — in 1985, 1989, from 1991 to 1993, and again in 2015 and 2016.

Here's a recap of how those past squads fared when they got there.

In 1985, the Blue Jays won 99 regular-season games — a feat never since repeated by Toronto — and headed to the post-season for the first time.

The team scored the fourth-most runs in the league that year and six Blue Jays had double-digit home run totals. (The current Blue Jays were similarly ranked fourth in runs scored during the 2025 regular season. Four Toronto players had 20 or more home runs, while four others had lower, two-digit HR totals.)

In those days, the playoffs were shorter and that playoff berth dropped the Blue Jays directly into the ALCS, where Toronto faced the Kansas City Royals.

The series went seven games, but it was Kansas that prevailed. The Royals would go on to win the World Series.

The Blue Jays won 89 games in 1989 and somehow took home the division title. (To put this in perspective, this win total is five games below what Toronto finished with this year.)

Up against the Oakland Athletics (also known as the A's) in the ALCS, the Jays won just one game in the series.

The A's went on to sweep the San Francisco Giants in the World