The Yankees had four games left to overcome the Blue Jays for the AL East crown and they handled their end of business by taking down the White Sox 5-3, completing a sweep of the bottom-dwellers in the Central.
Carlos Rodón tossed six innings in his final tune-up before the postseason, earning his 18th win of the year after Giancarlo Stanton slapped a bases-clearing double down the left field line. That left it up to the Red Sox to handle Toronto and complete a sweep of their own to give New York the lead, or else the division race will enter the final weekend all tied up.
Toronto Blue Jays (91-68) 6, Boston Red Sox (87-72) 1
Well, so much for that. Despite running out a bullpen game with their playoff fate still in the balance, the Blue Jays had a combined perfect game going until the seventh inning. Louis Varland served as the opener and gave them two scoreless innings with three strikeouts, and then Eric Lauer entered and gave them 3.1 innings as the bulk reliever before Yariel Rodríguez came in to get the last two outs of the sixth.
All that time, Brayan Bello held serve on the other end for the Sox, but he ran into trouble in the bottom of the sixth. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. started off on first base after Trevor Story made an errant throw, and Addison Barger walked followed by Anthony Santander getting plunked to load the bases. Justin Wilson was brought in from the bullpen to face Daulton Varsho, but the 29-year-old center fielder crushed a grand slam to put the Jays on the board. After an Andrés Giménez double, George Springer stepped up facing Zack Kelly and added on with a two-run blast to give them a 6-0 lead.
Braydon Fisher took the ball for the seventh and lost the perfecto and the shutout as Jarren Duran led off with a double and scored on a Story single, but the Jays relievers chained together outs to keep the Sox off the board from there. Toronto stays even with New York and ahead thanks to the tiebreaker, meaning we’ll have three tense games of scoreboard watching to go.
Detroit Tigers (86-73) 4, Cleveland Guardians (86-73) 2
After losing eight straight games to cede control of the AL Central (including five straight to these Guardians), the Tigers finally stopped their free fall, at least for one night. They avoided the sweep at the hands of their rivals thanks to the full effort of their bullpen, using six pitchers to keep Cleveland down for most of the night.
Detroit also gave a harsh greeting to Parker Messick, as Jahmai Jones led off with a homer and Wenceel Pérez followed suit two batters later. In the second inning, they added to their lead with a Dillon Dingler double and Javier Báez single to score him. The Guardians scored one in the bottom of the second thanks to a C.J. Kayfus double, but in the fourth Riley Greene got the run back with another leadoff home run.
Troy Melton was on the mound to start for the Tigers, and he gave them 3.2 innings of work, his longest outing since he started on August 13th against the White Sox. Brant Hurter and Tommy Kahnle were next up out of the ‘pen, and they both delivered 1.1 innings to get them into the seventh. Tyler Holton took over for Kahnle and closed out the seventh cleanly, but a leadoff single he allowed in the eighth ended up scoring on a José Ramírez double to cut the lead to 4-2. Still, Kyle Finnegan managed to strand Ramírez and pass the baton onto close Will Vest, who struck out the side in the ninth for the save. Detroit and Cleveland are tied back up atop the Central, though Cleveland remains the leader thanks to the tiebreaker.
Seattle Mariners (90-69) 6, Colorado Rockies (43-116) 2
There was no hangover for Seattle after clinching their first division title since 2001, as they jumped out to a 6-0 lead by the fifth inning. Eugenio Suárez got them started with a two-run shot in the second, his 49th of the season, and in the fourth they pushed across three more thanks to an RBI groundout from Dominic Canzone and a two-run single from Randy Arozarena. Suárez capped off the scoring with an RBI single in the fifth, knocking in his third RBI of the night and giving him 117 for the year. There were no more fireworks from Cal Raleigh this time, as the MVP candidate went 0-for-4 with an intentional walk, but the Mariners hardly needed his pop to coast past the league’s weakest team.
The Rockies were mostly held in check by Seattle’s pitching staff, starting with four shutout innings from Emerson Hancock. Carlos Vargas stranded a pair of runners in the fifth, but couldn’t stop Ezequiel Tovar from knocking in Blaine Crim to break the shutout in the sixth. That was all Colorado got until the ninth inning, as Hunter Goodman got a garbage time RBI single with two outs. The game wouldn’t last much longer, Crim lining out to close the series and secure Seattle their 90th win of the year as they stay in the hunt for the AL’s top seed.
Other Games
Houston Astros (85-74) 11, Athletics (75-84) 5: The Astros are on the outside looking in for the first time in a while, but they aren’t going out without a fight. They got a gem in Framber Valdez’s final regular season start, the 31-year-old tossing seven innings of one-run ball. He scattered seven hits throughout the night, striking out 10 in the process as he made just one mistake, leaving a 1-2 curveball close enough to the strike zone for Nick Kurtz to crush for a solo shot. Meanwhile, their offense built up a massive 9-0 lead by the fifth inning thanks to RBI hits from Victor Caratini, Jose Altuve, Isaac Paredes, Christian Walker, and Mauricio Dubón. Kurtz ran into a second homer later in the game to claw back a couple of runs, and the A’s added on two in the ninth to make the score look a little more competitive, but this game was in the Astros’ hands from the get-go.
