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With a runner on and two out in the top of the ninth, Bo Bichette came off the bench and got his first career pinch-hit, a two-run home run to deep left field that gave the Jays the lead. Jeff Hoffman worked a hitless bottom of the ninth to close out the 2-0 win that kept the Jays eight games back of the first-place New York Yankees in the American League East.

Six weeks later, the deficit has been erased.

Since that Bichette round-tripper, no team in the majors has been better than the Jays’ 23-10.

That eight-game deficit in the division is now a one-game lead thanks to Thursday’s 8-5 win over the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre that completed a wild and dramatic four-game sweep.

George Springer homered twice and drove in four runs, Addison Barger opened the scoring with an RBI double in the first and later added another double and a solo homer, and Nathan Lukes put the Jays on top for good with a fourth-inning, two-run double on the 14th pitch of his at-bat.

Part of the Jays’ surge has been because of major contributions from unexpected sources: Infielder Ernie Clement has hit .362 over that span and is 11th in the majors in average; Barger has nine home runs in that time and has scored 25 runs in 30 games; five players have an OPS of .888 or higher, led by Springer’s 1.013.

A big shift, too, has been in the way the team has run the bases.

At the end of May, the Jays were 26th in the majors in going from first base to third on a single and next-to-last in scoring from first on a double.

“The hitting part has been pretty consistent,” manager John Schneider said before Thursday’s game. “The baserunning part sucked and we told the guys that. If you’re 30th in baserunning in the league, you’re going to have a hard time … if you’re a league-average baserunning team (with this offence), imagine what you would do in terms of scoring runs.”

The message was received. Since June 1, going into Thursday’s games, they were third in going first to third and second in scoring from first on doubles.

They’ve moved from the bottom of the table in the Statcast metric of “baserunning runs” to 19th. 

Everything trickles down from the top, and Schneider credits Springer, a 12-year veteran, with setting the example for his teammates. The 2017 World Series MVP has joked about wanting to be called “offensive player” instead of “designated hitter” because he sees offence as much more than just hitting.

“I think that bleeds down into other guys,” Schneider said. “That’s how cultures are created.”

Schneider also pointed out, both in post-game comments Wednesday and pre-game availability Thursday, how important it was that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ran hard to first on a routine ground ball to third base Wednesday with the Jays leading 8-0 in the fourth inning. 

“That rubs off on people,” Schneider said. “When guys are doing that, it sets the tone and creates the expectation that this is how we do things.”

With most of the same players around, this year’s Blue Jays seem to be much more cohesive and united than last year’s last-place squad, a team that was hanging around the .500 mark until a late-June slide sent them into a downward spiral.

“The character of this team is a little bit different than teams that I’ve been on and been around,” Clement said. “I think we’re going to keep picking each other up when things don’t go our way.”

That’s something that didn’t happen nearly enough last year. Why the change? The manager believes it comes from his top three hitters being at different spots in their careers now.

“Whether it’s … ‘I’m really rich now and I have to prove that (I’m worth it),’ ‘people thought my career was over last year and I’m going to show them that it wasn’t,’ or ‘I’m a pending free agent,’” Schneider said, referring to but not naming Guerrero, Springer and Bichette.

“There are so many different ways that things get changed. … and when you get the big dogs to buy in, it just becomes a non-negotiable. It’s not that they weren’t doing it last year. I’ll take the blame for not putting as much emphasis and focus on it.”

That last part was likely to take his players off the hook for what was a miserable year for Bichette and Springer, especially, but however it has happened there has been a 180-degree shift in the vibe around the team.

With the high-intensity Yankees series in the rear-view mirror, the next test is to see if the Jays can avoid a letdown as the 43-43 Angels come to town. They then hit the road to face the two worst teams in the American League, the White Sox and Athletics, before the all-star break. The division is there for the taking.