Blue Jays win 10th in a row, climb over Yankees in AL East

The Toronto Blue Jays are in first place in the American League East.

Chris Colabello and Justin Smoak each hit three-run homers, and the surging Toronto Blue Jays put up seven runs in the second inning en route to their 10th straight victory, 10-3 over the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday.

Moments later, the New York Yankees were defeated 2-1 by the Cleveland Indians, to fall from the top of the division standings to 0.5 games behind the Blue Jays.

This is the latest in the season Toronto has led the AL East since 1993.

Chris Colabello knew from the beginning that this Toronto Blue Jays team was a special one.

Now he's just glad to be helping them out regularly.

Colabello was 2 for 4 with a home run and four RBIs on Wednesday to help lift the Blue Jays into first place in the American League East with a 10-3 victory over the Oakland Athletics.

The game — Toronto's 10th straight win — was Colabello's 72nd of the season with the big league club after starting the year at triple-A Buffalo.

"I remember being so happy that first week of (spring training), even after they sent me down," Colabello said. "I went in there and told (general manager) Alex (Anthopoulos) and (manager John Gibbons): 'I commend you guys on the group you've put together because it's special.'

"I told them I look forward to being a part of it and I'm thankful to be a part of it."

Colabello, who's been getting more playing time with slugger Edwin Encarnacion nursing a sore left finger, is on a nine-game hitting streak and batting .328 with 11 home runs on the year.

"The more you're in there the more comfortable you start getting," Colabello said of his hot streak. "You start making adjustments and things like that, slowing things down."

Justin Smoak also hit a three-run homer, Josh Donaldson had two hits and drove in a pair and Russell Martin had an RBI for Toronto (63-52), which scored seven runs in the second inning and leaped into a half-game lead over New York in the division with the Yankees' 2-1 loss to Cleveland.

Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey (7-10) fought off the wind to fan four batters and scatter three runs, six hits and two walks over six innings.

While impressed with the team's performance over the last two weeks, the 40-year-old downplayed the significance of the their second 10-game winning streak of the year.

"I don't know if I would say I'm amazed," Dickey said. "You know the potential of the individual guys in here, it's collectively what's so fun to be a part of. When you've got Chris Colabello doing what he's doing and you've got great defence ... I feel like we're capable of consistently winning ball games."

Dickey also downplayed the significance of snagging first place in the division with seven weeks still left in the season.

"You can't put the cart before the horse," he said. "We want people to get excited about it, we want people to really enjoy what's happening because it's a long time coming for this city and this team and this country, but we can't afford to do that.

"We've got to keep things in perspective. We've got 10 more games against the Yankees, we've got games against the Orioles, people trying to catch us, so we're going to have to consistently be good."