The Toronto Blue Jays are putting the American League on notice and made a statement on Thursday with their 11-4 win over the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers.

Toronto now sits in top spot in the AL with a 61-42 record and are only a half-game back of the Milwaukee Brewers for top spot in majors.

"It's a lot of fun coming to the ballpark every day. This is just a fun bunch of guys to be around, from the staff to the players." Blue Jays pitcher Eric Lauer said after picking up the win on Thursday. "It's just a great clubhouse. Everybody is living together and we're having a lot of fun together. Winning makes everything better. We're going to keep going as much as we can. This makes baseball fun [and] baseball is fun when you win."

The Blue Jays have now won 19 of their past 21 games and have a 35-14 record since May 28, which was the last time they were under .500 this season.

Since May 28, Toronto has led the league in batting average (.278), on-base percentage (.350), slugging percentage (.454), runs (278), and RBIs (264), according to FanGraphs.

What's interesting is that the Blue Jays remain out of the top third of the league in home runs, sitting in 11th spot (63), which goes against the grain of successful teams in recent years.

“I want these guys to be aggressive. We've been playing that way for a while. We have the personalities and talent to do that. That's kind of the way we're built. These guys aren't taking anything for granted,” manager John Schneider said on Thursday. “When you have the talent and ability to do it, you get the effort, attention to detail, and the anticipation that's so fun to watch. It gets contagious, guys are flying down the line on ground balls. That's how we play. That's how we want to be known. We want other teams to know this is what the effort and aggressiveness is going to be.”

The Blue Jays are still counting on the long ball as being part of the equation as they go into the trade deadline and enter the stretch drive of a potential playoff run.

Superstar Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has been solid for the team during their run, batting .296 with 52 RBIs, but only has 13 home runs this season. He's on pace to only hit 20 homers for the 2025 campaign, which would be the lowest since his rookie season in 2019.

“We need him to be the player that he is. We just need him to be a part of this team,” said Schneider. “The power is going to come, but he's been so integral to what we've been doing from a culture and performance standpoint, and we just don't want him to put pressure on himself. He very well may hit 40 by the end of the season, but what he's doing now to help us win every single night is what we're looking for.”

On top of Guerrero's struggles with power, the Blue Jays have been without prized free-agent slugger Anthony Santander for a large portion of the season because of a shoulder injury.

Santander, 30, joined the Blue Jays on a five-year, $92.5 million deal in the off-season after batting .235 with 44 home runs and 102 RBIs with the Baltimore Orioles last season. He struggled to begin this season, batting .179 with six home runs and 18 RBIs in 50 games before going down with an injury.

The 6-foot outfielder is considered week-to-week with the injury and Keegan Matheson of MLB.com reported on Monday that his ability to return late this season could be in question, with late August or September being the most likely time he could return to the lineup.

“He’s disappointed, I think, and it’s bad timing in his first year here and all that kind of stuff,” Schneider told Matheson on Monday. “He’s frustrated, but happy with the way we’re playing, and it’s good to have him back around. Talking with him and the staff, he’s still going to be a couple of weeks away from hitting and we’ll evaluate him week to week to see when that does start.”