AROUND THE HORN
Rays: Brandon Lowe hit three home runs and the 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 in2 innings. He gave 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 home crowd of 41,648, the streaky Yankees can still punch their AL wild-card ticket Sunday with a victory in the scheduled regular-season finale against the Rays.
Blue Jays: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his 47th home run and the Blue Jays pushed their AL wild-card chase to the final day of the regular season by thumping the Orioles 10-1 Saturday. 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 card-leading Yankees. Toronto began the day tied with Seattle, one game behind Boston for the second wild-card spot. George Springer, Teoscar Hernández, Bo Bichette and Danny Jansen all went deep for Toronto. The Blue Jays lead the majors with a franchise-record 258 home runs, topping the 257 they hit in 2010. Baltimore has allowed a big league-leading 254 home runs.
Yankees: DJ LeMahieu has a sports hernia that will require offseason surgery, but the Yankees’ leadoff hitter will attempt to play through the injury in October. The major league batting champion last year, LeMahieu was out of the starting lineup again Saturday in a critical game against the Rays. LeMahieu exited Thursday night’s victory in Toronto, received a cortisone injection Friday and was unavailable for the Yankees’ 4-3 loss to the Rays. The team had been calling the injury right hip and groin soreness, but after LeMahieu was examined by doctors Friday, manager Aaron Boone said Saturday morning the Gold Glove infielder “essentially has a sports hernia” that he’ll need to take care of after the season. The club hopes he can play in the scheduled regular-season finale Sunday. “There’s been days where it’s better,” Boone said, “and he can manage it. There’s certain times where he just can’t press through.”
Rockies: The Rockies made Bill Schmidt their permanent general manager on Saturday, promoting him from the interim GM spot he’d held since May. The Rockies were 74-85 when they made the announcement before playing at Arizona. “After five months, it became increasingly clear that Bill was the right person to lead this franchise forward,” team president and chief operating officer Greg Feasel said. “He came into a challenging situation and quickly impacted the play on and off the field.” The Rockies began the year in turmoil, having traded franchise star Nolan Arenado to the Cardinals in the offseason, and were 9-17 after April. Colorado hasn’t had a losing month since May and is .500 since the All-Star break. While still a distant fourth in the NL West, they are only 3 games behind the once-contending Padres in the division. Schmidt has been with the Rockies’ organization since 1999, when he was hired from the Indians to head the scouting department. He replaced Jeff Bridich, who resigned in late April.