Former Blue Jays All-Star drops the mic on entitled Yankees after four-game sweep

For the first time since April 13, the Toronto Blue Jays are in sole possession of first place in the AL East. The Jays did it in style, too, capping off a four-game sweep of the flailing New York Yankees on Thursday behind two more homers from scorching-hot outfielder George Springer.

On May 29, the Blue Jays sat at .500, stuck in third place and facing tough questions about whether the team should wind up selling at the trade deadline. Now, after winning 20 of their last 30 games, they have the inside track on not just a playoff spot but a division title.

Which probably comes as a pretty big surprise to Yankees play-by-play man Michael Kay. Just a day ago, despite the fact that New York had lost the first three games in Toronto and 13 of its last 19, Kay showed Toronto zero respect, saying that the Jays "are not a first-place team."

“If you look at the run differential, the Yankees’ run differential is +105," Kay said on his radio show. "The Blue Jays, after a 12-5 win, finally got in the positive yesterday, they’re +4. Do you realize, they should be a .500 team because of a +4 run differential? And the Yankees should have at least four or five more wins with a +105-run differential. They’re not playing great baseball. I’m sorry, they’re not.”

Kay isn't necessarily wrong; the Yankees do have a significantly better run differential, which does tend to correlate with wins and losses over the long haul. But in real life, on the actual field, Toronto just pasted New York for four consecutive days. That's the only thing that really matters, and after the final out on Thursday, former Blue Jays All-Star Ricky Romero wanted to check back in with Kay to see what he thought now.

Romero spent all five seasons of his MLB career with Toronto, making an All-Star team while posting a 2.92 ERA over 32 starts back in 2011. So you'd think he'd know a thing or two, and you'd also think that he's developed a good old-fashioned hatred of the Yankees. Based on Kay's comments, it's hard to disagree with him.

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Blue Jays positioned to hold off Yankees in AL East race

It's also worth pointing out that the run differential Kay cites is pretty misleading. New York banked that differential early in the year, when they were playing as well as any team in baseball. But we haven't seen that team for weeks now, if not months; they're just 13-16 since the end of May, and they're in total free fall right now. This isn't bad luck, just bad baseball.

The Blue Jays, meanwhile, are looking every bit like a playoff team. Max Scherzer is back healthy to stabilize the back end of Toronto's rotation, and they're getting surprising offensive contributions from everyone from Springer to Addison Barger to Nathan Lukes. This is a deep and dangerous lineup right now, with enough veteran pitching to get by, and if they keep hitting like this there's no reason why they can't win a wide-open division.

Because really, what about the way the Yankees are playing right now deserves the confidence Kay seems to have in them? What does "not a first-place team" even mean, anyway? Aren't you a first-place team if you're, you know, in first place? Or does that only apply if you happen to wear pinstripes? The Yankees can act as though the AL East crown is their birthright all they want, but it's slipping through their fingers, and they could stand to take some notes from the team that's actually in first right now.