Why Jeff Passan believes the Blue Jays aren't a real AL East threat

That is the warning sitting over Toronto after a rough opening stretch. The Blue Jays are 4-6, while New York has jumped to 7-2 and already opened a 3.5-game lead in the AL East.

Sporting News pushed that angle harder by pointing to Jeff Passan's view that the Yankees are taking early control of the division. That is a loud message for a Toronto club that just handed Guerrero a franchise-shaping contract.

Early April standings do not decide anything on their own. But they do change the pressure when one rival is stacking wins and the Blue Jays are dragging a 5-game losing streak into the week.

The record is one problem. The run differential is another. Toronto sits at minus-20 through 10 games, while the Yankees are plus-25, which is a much sharper snapshot of how different these starts have looked.

That is why this story has teeth. It is not just New York winning. It is Toronto looking unstable while the team it has to chase is already banking separation.

Passan's warning lands because the Blue Jays were supposed to look steadier than this. Instead, they have scored 36 runs and allowed 56, a gap that tells you the slump is not living in one part of the roster.

The timing also hurts. Toronto just took a 14-2 loss from the Dodgers, and that kind of result only feeds the sense that this club is still too easy to knock off balance when the pressure rises.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have done what division winners try to do early. They have taken care of business, stayed efficient, and forced everyone else in the AL East to look up instead of around. That does not crown them in April, but it does raise the cost of every Blue Jays stumble.

For Toronto, the bigger issue is expectation. Once Guerrero signed long term, the conversation stopped being about keeping a star and started being about building a club that can win this division. Falling behind New York this quickly makes that challenge feel more urgent.

That puts more weight on Schneider, more heat on the lineup, and more scrutiny on every roster decision from here. The Yankees do not need to run away with the East for this to become a problem. They only need to keep making Toronto pay for its slow start.

So yes, Passan's notice is worth hearing in Toronto. Not because the division is over, but because the Blue Jays are already being pushed into the kind of catch-up baseball that wears on a team fast. And in this division, chasing the Yankees is always a bad place to start.