TORONTO -- A lot has changed since the Blue Jays last faced the Red Sox back in April at a gray, chilly Fenway Park.

For a time, it looked like Boston would be a non-factor in 2022, leaving the Blue Jays, Rays and Yankees to exist in an AL East topped by just three powerhouses, not four. Toronto took that most recent series, bumping the Sox to 8-12, and they soon plummeted to 10-19, an early afterthought.

They’re back, though, making a mess of a division that could send four teams to the postseason. The Blue Jays nearly delivered an encore for the ages on Wednesday night, forcing extra innings and chasing back-to-back walk-off wins, but the bullpen unraveled late in a 6-5 loss in 10 innings. The Blue Jays took the series, though, leaving the two clubs nearly deadlocked in the standings with Toronto (42-33) just a half-game behind Boston (43-33).

Wednesday’s loss was inches from a better result, but manager Charlie Montoyo won’t view the series as anything less than a success.

“We took two out of three,” Montoyo said, “and we were one hit away from taking all three against a team that’s hot coming in.”

Such is life in the AL East, where taking two of three can leave a team physically and emotionally exhausted.

“It’s like playing in a playoff game every single day,” Montoyo said. “That’s how it feels, and it’s all good. It’s not going to stop.”

Of course, both leagues are chasing the Yankees, who continue to play at a historic pace and just hit the most June homers of any team in MLB history. But there’s plenty of room at the postseason table now.

We saw the Blue Jays go toe-to-toe with the Yanks earlier this season, beginning with a four-game split in the Bronx that seemed to set the table for a season full of heavyweight tilts. The Blue Jays can never claim to have the same rivalry that New York and Boston share, but they’re beginning to carve out their own with each.

It has nothing to do with hating one another, but simply with being two great teams in the same division. Play a few more games like we just saw on Tuesday and Wednesday, though, and these budding rivalries will only grow less friendly.

That almost boiled over early in the series finale when Alejandro Kirk was hit by a Nick Pivetta pitch, which cleared the dugouts and bullpens. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was right in the middle of it, climbing over the dugout railing as he exchanged words with Pivetta, but cooler heads eventually prevailed as warnings were issued.

Alek Manoah, who gave the Blue Jays seven strong innings once again, attributed it to an “extremely competitive” team having their teammate’s back. He has a point, too. This Toronto roster is showing more passion, both on the field and in the dugout, than we’ve seen since the playoff teams of 2015 and ‘16. As tensions rise with an AL East battle, that only becomes more pronounced.

“Those guys don’t stop fighting,” Manoah said. “That’s the motto of our team. Just do your job, pass it on to the next guy and continue the fight. There’s a lot of confidence there in the bottom of the tenth. We were just trying to get that tying run to the plate and we ended up getting the winning run to the plate. We fell a little short, but we’ll keep fighting.”

From here, the Blue Jays’ road only grows more difficult. After surviving these battles with the Red Sox, the Rays come into town on Thursday for a grueling series of five games in four days, including a split doubleheader on Saturday that will test the depth -- and maybe the sanity -- of each club’s pitching staff.

What all of these games do, though, are prepare a young Blue Jays team for a true postseason run. The shortened 2020 season was a taste, but far from the full experience.

Plenty needs to change before Toronto gets to that point, of course. This bullpen needs reinforcements, which showed yet again in the finale, while rotation depth and a bench bat could also be on the club’s shopping list ahead of the Trade Deadline on Aug. 2. The coming weeks should be anything but quiet.

If the Blue Jays manage to make a true run at this, though, it will be a series like this that they draw from in early October, when they’re forced to battle through long, tight, frustrating games with even higher stakes.