Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across Major League Baseball. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in New York Yankees fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

Last Tuesday, Pinstripe Alley’s latest Reacts poll asked readers to take a look at the state of the AL East and decide which of the teams currently trailing the Yankees stood the best chance to make it a closer race again.

This was not a question borne out of arrogance because we are fully aware that it is still early June and there is a long, long way to go before we know how the AL East will shake out. Indeed, even at the time the question was posed, the Yankees’ division lead was 5.5 games over second-place Toronto and 6.5 up on third-place Tampa Bay — solid but hardly commanding. It is, however, fair to say that the 2025 outlooks for the five teams have at least slightly evolved since the end of spring training. But to what degree?

So that was the rationale. These are the results.

Kyle Thele

That is … not a clear-cut consensus. This reminds me of when contestants on Who Wants to be a Millionaire used the “Ask the Audience” lifeline on a high-level question that likely had most of the voters simply guessing — though in this case they at least felt OK about ruling one answer out. Indeed, it’s been a rough year in Baltimore despite better results of late under interim manager Tony Mansolino, who replaced Brandon Hyde in mid-May.

The Rays were the narrow winner of this poll, taking the plurality with 38 percent. They’ve seemingly gotten more comfortable at their temporary home of Steinbrenner Field as the season has rolled on, and they’ve played better since their 21-26 start. Junior Caminero looks like a rising star, Brandon Lowe & Josh Lowe have both been hot, and there are surprisingly few first baseman in the league better than Jonathan Aranda. So while the Blue Jays (who have exceeded expectations by being “fine”) were a game ahead of Tampa Bay at the time this poll began, it was reasonable to combine their recent play with their innate “Rays-iness,” for lack of a better term, in managing to almost always remain competitive over the past several years no matter how anonymous their roster might seem.

Now if this poll were taken again this week, I’d be curious if the Red Sox would get higher than 32 percent after bludgeoning the Yankees’ pitching staff while winning two out of three in the Bronx. Plenty of smart people around the game said that they would challenge the Yanks for the AL East, if not win it outright. But Boston played some middling baseball through the end of April and followed that with an ugly May, putting them in fourth, 9.5 games behind New York as the most recent series began. So for them, the question is whether they’re the team that’s looked inconsistent throughout 2025, or the popular preseason pick that did a nice job in winning a road series in New York. It’s far from clear, so for all we know, perhaps that 38-32 edge would hold for Tampa Bay.

What do you think of the results? Were the Rays your pick, or did you lean toward one of Boston or Toronto? Let us know in the comments. Again, now with just a 4.5-game lead entering today’s offday, this race is far from over for the Yankees.

These survey results are sponsored by FanDuel.