The Red Sox fell to the Blue Jays Friday night, and the three other AL East teams all won. That puts the Yankees in first place, and makes this a five team race. Consider:

• The Yankees are on a 13-3 run that moved them into first place by 1/2 game.
• Despite horrible starting pitching (5.36 ERA) the Red Sox are just 1/2 game out and their starters are five games over .500. The team holds the wild card right now.
• Despite a recent nine game losing streak, the Blue Jays are just 1 1/2 games out of first and one game out of the wild card.
• The Tampa Bay Rays, 5 1/2 games out, still have the best offense in the American League.
• The Baltimore Orioles, 5 1/2 games out, just took five games in a row from the Blue Jays and Tigers, one just out of first place and one building it’s first place lead.

The Orioles drew more than 42,000 fans for Matt Wieters debut last night after between 10,000 and 13,000 the previous three games. Gary Thorne, on a Orioles broadcast this week made an salient point. He commented that the Orioles games were more fun to watch lately, not necessarily because the Orioles were winning, but because the games were close. He noted that lately, defense has mattered, pitching moves mattered, strategy mattered, and that made the O’s better to watch. They certainly seem to be on their way up.

Pundits suspected this division would result in a tight three team race. At this point, it’s tough to count out any of the five.