It should’ve been a joyous day at Yankee Stadium, and in a way, it was. Ben Rice’s multi-homer game powered the Yankees to their eighth-straight win to close out the season, the team playing excellent baseball down the stretch to re-assert themselves as clear title contenders. But as we’ll detail, it was for naught; the Yankees, despite the second-best record in the American League, earn the four-seed in the playoff bracket, and are due to play the Red Sox in a massive Wild Card Round matchup starting
tomorrow night.
You’ve surely seen the scores by now, but let’s go through just what happened on the final day of the regular season.
Toronto Blue Jays (94-68) 13, Tampa Bay Rays (77-85) 4
The Yankees kept the pressure on the Blue Jays all the way to the end, and in the final days of the season, Toronto responded. They emphatically dispatched the Rays on Sunday, finishing off a sweep and clinching the AL East title.
The Jays had Rogers Centre rocking right from the start. Kevin Gausman yielded a run in the top of the first, but Toronto responded with force. The first two batters in the home half drew walks off Ian Seymour, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s RBI single tied the game. Daulton Varsho singled to load the bases, and Alejandro Kirk blew the top off the place with a grand slam:
In the blink of an eye, 5-1 Blue Jays. The Rays had chances to make a game of it, keeping the heat on an ineffective Gausman, even scoring three in the third, on a Jonathan Aranda two-run single and an RBI single from Jake Mangum. Gausman was on the ropes in the fourth again, departing with the bases loaded, but Mason Fluharty struck out Aranda to escape the jam, and preserve Gausman’s line at four runs over 3.2 innings with ten baserunners allowed.
That was Tampa’s only opportunity to seize control. Toronto added a run off Edwin Uceta in the fourth on Andres Gimenez’s sac fly, and Kirk came up big again in the next inning, his two-run homer feeling like the dagger in the Yankees’ division hopes:
Toronto poured it on to remove any doubt, brutalizing Uceta and Kevin Kelly for five more runs in the seventh, featuring two-run homers from Addison Barger and George Springer. The Yankees were in the process of closing out their win over the Orioles as this happened, but it was no matter. The Jays secured the AL East crown, holding off the hard-changing Yankees and earning the first seed in the AL.
Boston Red Sox (89-73) 4, Detroit Tigers (87-75) 3
With both sides locked into having to play in the Wild Card Round, neither team here really put their best foot forward, keeping their top starters in reserve for this week. Still, what resulted was an entertaining game, one that ensured a Yankees-Red Sox deathmatch in the first round of the playoffs.
Detroit started Chris Paddack, the right-hander having been demoted to the bullpen for most of the last month of the season. He gave up a solo shot to Masataka Yoshida in the first to open the scoring:
On the other side was José De León, who was once a top prospect with the Dodgers and Rays a decade ago but never put it all together, derailed twice by Tommy John surgery. De León put together a more than respectable start, striking out eight over 6.2 innings. His biggest mistake did put the Tigers in front though, a three-run blast by Javier Báez in the fourth giving Detroit a 3-1 lead:
But Boston responded quickly. David Hamilton’s two-run shot in the bottom of the fourth tied things up:
Nick Sogard and Jarren Duran followed with back-to-back doubles, and the Red Sox led again 4-3. De León was sharp from there, working through the fifth and sixth easily, giving way to Steven Matz in the seventh after issuing a two-out walk. He received a nice hand from the Fenway crowd as he departed:
Matz secured the last out of the seventh, and Zack Kelly worked a perfect eighth to get us to the ninth with the game still in the balance. Greg Weissert came on and worked into trouble, a walk and single putting the go-ahead run on, but he bounced back to strike out Jake Rogers and induce a game-ending fly out from Parker Meadows:
Boston finishes at 89-73 and will face the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Detroit’s collapse is finished, though they still earn a playoff spot. They will face the Guardians in Cleveland on Tuesday night.
Other Games
Cleveland Guardians (88-74) 9, Texas Rangers (81-81) 8 (ten innings)
Detroit had already fallen in Boston by the ninth inning of this game, meaning Cleveland was left with little to play for in their final game. The Tigers’ loss clinched the AL Central for the Guardians, with Cleveland holding the tiebreaker on Detroit. And yet, we still had ourselves a thriller to close out the regular season.
Patrick Corbin was ineffective for Texas, exiting after having allowed three runs over four runs, but L.T. Allen didn’t fare better for Cleveland, finishing having allowed four runs over 4.1 innings. Texas would lead 5-3 into the seventh, when the Guardians would claw back into it. Jhonkensy Noel’s sixth homer of the year made it 5-4, and a sac fly from Brayan Rocchio in the eighth tied it, ultimately sending the game to extras.
The Rangers put up a three-spot in the top of the tenth, and with their division title already secured, you couldn’t have totally blamed the Guardians if they went down quietly and prepared to host the Tigers. Instead, they decided to end things in dramatic fashion. Bo Naylor doubled to start the inning, making it 8-6. Jose Corniell walked Petey Halpien to bring up Brayan Rocchio as the winning run. Corniell grooved a 1-2 four-seamer down the middle, and Rocchio drilled it off the right-field foul pole for a walk-off three-run homer:
That allowed Cleveland to have a proper celebration; rather than pouring champagne on each other after a loss, the Guardians could claim their stunning division crown in style. Their comeback, after being as far back as 15.5 games in July, is complete, and they win the AL Central by two games.
