Mets victory secures top NL wild card
PHILADELPHIA: The New York Mets clinched a postseason spot with a 5-3 win over the Phillies to secure the top National League wild card and set off a bubbly celebration that spilled from the visitors’ clubhouse onto the field in Philadelphia.
The defending NL champions will host San Francisco or St Louis on Wednesday night, with the winner advancing to face the Chicago Cubs.
The only other time the Mets made the postseason in consecutive years was 19992000. New York won the NL East last season and went all the way to the World Series before losing to Kansas City.
Two games under .500 on Aug 19, the Mets have gone a major league-best 27-12 during the last six weeks to vault over four teams in the NL wild-card race.
San Francisco stayed one game ahead of St Louis with a 3-0 win over the Dodgers, and so hold a one-game lead for the last NL play-off spot going into the final day of the regular season.
Matt Moore starts at home for the Giants against the Dodgers, where a win gives them the second NL wild-card slot. After a 4-3 win on Saturday, the Cardinals need to beat Pittsburgh for the second day running and hope for a Giants loss to force a one-game tie-breaker.
Three teams are vying for an AL wildcard berth, with Baltimore, Toronto and Detroit all in contention going into the last day.
In Boston, Ezequiel Carrera hit a ninthinning sacrifice fly to help Toronto to a 4-3 win after the Red Sox tied it in the eighth on a balk.
The win moved the Blue Jays into a tie with Baltimore for the top spot in the AL wild-card race with 88 wins with one game to play — Toronto own the tie-breaker.
With the loss, Boston fell one-half game behind Cleveland in the race for home-field advantage when their ALDS series begins on Thursday.
The Orioles lost 7-3 to the Yankees, with Tyler Austin equalling the score with a seventh-inning home run and Austin Romine and Brett Gardner driving in two runs each in the eighth as New York rallied to stall Baltimore’s play-off push.