It took all 162 games, but we finally have some clarity in what was a thrilling wild-card race in the American League. The Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue punched their tickets into the postseason and setting up one more meeting between these two division rivals in the AL wild-card game on Tuesday.
The Orioles beat the New York Yankees 5-2, powered by a pair of two-run homers from catcher Matt Wieters. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, got in the postseason when the Detroit Tigers lost 1-0 to the Atlanta Braves. The Jays eventually won their game with the Boston Red Sox 2-1, which would have gotten them up the postseason spot regardless of Detroit’s result.
The Blue Jays will now host the do-or-die wild-card game Tuesday since they own the tiebreaker. They edged the season series against the Orioles, 10-9.
In all, the final day of the AL postseason race finished up pretty tidy. It could have been a lot more chaotic if a few results had gone a different way. A Tigers win or Blue Jays loss would have meant more regular-season baseball on Monday, as the Tigers had a lingering make-up game that would be played if needed.
Detroit’s loss leaves them 86-75 and two behind the Jays and Orioles (both 89-73), so the extra game wouldn’t change anything. The Indians (94-67) would have been on the other side of that extra Tigers game and that could have been important for the Red Sox, who were chasing home-field in their ALDS series with Cleveland. But since the Red Sox (93-69) lost to the Blue Jays, the Indians clinched that.
An even more chaotic scenario involved the Tigers winning Sunday, winning Monday, getting into a one-game playoff for a wild-card spot and pushing back the entire AL postseason bracket. The easier scenario prevailed, though, with no baseball to be played Monday, the Tigers’ season over and the Jays and O’s in the wild-card game.
The Jays and Orioles are two teams very similar in their makeup: They both hit homers and have question marks when it comes to pitching, though the O’s have the better bullpen and the Jays have the better starters. Neither team has announced a starting pitcher for the wild-card game yet (they’re too busy celebrating, of course). But it’s worth noting the Blue Jays burned their best pitcher Sunday in Aaron Sanchez, so he won’t pitch Tuesday.
The Jays could send out J.A. Happ, who won 20 games, on four days’ rest, or send either Marcus Stroman or Francisco Liriano to the mound. The Orioles would likely either call on Chris Tillman or Ubaldo Jimenez.
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