Orioles win East, claim top AL seed

BALTIMORE — Anthony Santander homered, DL Hall worked out of a sixth-inning jam and the Baltimore Orioles clinched the AL East title with a 2-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Thursday night.

Dean Kremer (13-5) allowed two hits and a walk in 5 1/3 innings, striking out eight, and the Orioles reached 100 wins for the sixth time in team history and first since 1980. Baltimore prevailed in a brutally tough division that relegated the Red Sox and New York Yankees to afterthoughts.

Now the Orioles — two years after losing 110 games — will enter the postseason as the top seed in the American League.

Blue Jays 6, Yankees 0: Chris Bassitt reached 200 innings for the first time, Brandon Belt hit a three-run homer and Toronto moved one step closer to an AL wild-card berth by beating New York at home.

Daulton Varsho and Matt Chapman hit solo home runs for the Blue Jays (88-71), who entered in position for the second AL wild card, a half-game ahead of Houston and two games ahead of Seattle.

White Sox 3, Diamondbacks 1: Arizona delayed clinching an NL wild card berth as Andrew Vaughn and Yoán Moncada homered to lead Chicago to a win.

Arizona (84-75) is in position for the second NL wild card and its first postseason appearance since 2017. The Diamondbacks entered two games ahead of the Chicago Cubs and Miami and inched closer to securing a wildcard spot with Chicago’s loss to the Atlanta Braves.

Braves 5, Cubs 3: Max Olson hit his major leagueleading 54th homer, and host Atlanta clinched homefield advantage throughout the postseason with a win over slumping Chicago.

Austin Riley had three hits and scored two runs as the Braves (103-56) won for the sixth time in seven games. Atlanta can match the franchise record for wins with a season-ending sweep of the Nationals.

Pirates 3, Phillies 2: Kyle Schwarber went deep, Bryce Harper went off on an umpire and was ejected and Trea Turner went from second to home on a stolen base in Philadelphia’s loss to visiting Pittsburgh.

The fireworks came when Harper seemingly held his swing on a full count against Luis L. Ortiz in the fourth inning. Harper started to remove his shin guard when third base umpire Ángel Hernández called out the slugger. Harper became enraged and pointed and shouted at Hernandez as he walked down the baseline.