Yanks can’t clinch first wild-card spot
Brandon Lowe hit three home runs and the Tampa Bay Rays rolled to a 12-2 blowout of the Yankees on Saturday that prevented New York from clinching a playoff spot.
With a chance to pitch his team into the postseason, Yankees starter Jordan Montgomery instead was rocked for a careerworst seven earned runs in 2 2⁄ innings. He gave
3 up a pair of three-run homers to Lowe, who also went deep in the seventh against Michael King.
Even with the embarrassing defeat before a booing Yankee Stadium crowd of 41,648, New York could still punch its postseason ticket Saturday with losses by Toronto and Seattle. By the time the Yankees had finished their postgame interviews, though, the Blue Jays had built a huge lead late in their game against last-place Baltimore.
A victory in the scheduled regular-season finale Sunday against Tampa Bay would guarantee the streaky Yankees an AL wild card.
“We’ve got to win. It’s as simple as that,” veteran outfielder Brett Gardner said. “Here we are going into Game 162 not knowing what the future is.
“It’s not ideal. But it’s nice knowing that we still have a chance,” he added. “The way the season has gone, it kind of makes sense that it would come down to the very last day. Seems about right.”
New York is assured at least a tiebreaker game Monday that could put the team in the playoffs for the fifth straight season. But after dropping the first two games of this series, the Yankees no longer control their own destiny to host the wild-card game. Now they need a Boston loss to do so.
New York began the day with a one-game lead over the Red Sox for the league’s top wild card. Boston was playing at Washington.
“Just a bad day for us and we’ve got to get over it quickly,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Lowe batted in the eighth with an opportunity to match the major league record of four home runs in a game. He evaded a 93 mph fastball from Joely Rodriguez that was way inside, then grounded out to first base.
Tampa Bay, which has already wrapped up homefield advantage throughout the American League playoffs, had never before been 39 games over .500.
Mike Zunino, Randy Arozarena and Wander Franco had three hits apiece for the Rays, who outhit New York 19-4.
A Blue Jays 10, Orioles 1: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his 47th home run and host Toronto pushed its AL wild-card chase to the final day of the regular season by thumping Baltimore.
The Blue Jays launched five homers while Alek Manoah allowed one hit over seven innings to help Toronto close within one game of the wild cardleading New York Yankees.
Toronto began the day tied with Seattle, one game behind Boston for the second wild-card spot.