The Houston Astros will enter their last sequence of the season with a 1.5-game lead over the Seattle Mariners within the American League wild-card race after defeating them 8-3 on Wednesday.
In the meantime, the Texas Rangers held serve with a 5-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels, preserving a 2.5-game lead over the Astros for the AL West title.
The three groups, who’ve been neck-and-neck for supremacy in MLB’s best division for greater than a month, will enter the ultimate sequence of the season with the division title nonetheless at stake. The Rangers will face the Mariners in a four-game sequence in Seattle, whereas the Astros will journey to face an Arizona Diamondbacks staff nonetheless preventing its personal battle within the Nationwide League wild-card race.
-
Rangers: 89-69
-
Astros: 87-72, 2.5 GB
-
Mariners: 85-73, 4.0 GB
-
Rays: 97-62, +10.0 video games
-
Blue Jays: 87-71 +0.5 video games
-
Astros: 87-72
-
Mariners: 85-73, 1.5 GB
The division tiebreakers type an ideal triangle. The Mariners maintain the benefit over the Astros with a 9-4 file towards them, the Astros have the sting towards the Rangers by way of a 9-4 file, and the Rangers get the nod over the Mariners due to their 8-1 file.
By advantage of that tiebreaker and the four-game hole between the Rangers and Mariners, there’s a lone situation remaining through which Seattle wins the West. That might require a four-game sweep of the Rangers, with the Astros profitable two, and solely two, video games towards the D-backs.
In that case, the Mariners would win a three-team tiebreaker.
The Mariners might’ve moved into playoff place with a win Wednesday and appeared tantalizingly near doing so at instances. J.P. Crawford led off the underside of the primary inning with a homer to take a 1-0 lead, which was misplaced in a four-run fourth inning for the Astros on homers by Yordan Álvarez and Mauricio Dubon.
The Mariners reduce the result in one on a bases-loaded single by Eugenio Suarez within the backside of the fourth, however the Astros put the sport away with extra scoring within the seventh.
Probably the most weird second of the sport, nonetheless, got here within the backside of the sixth, when Astros reliever Hector Neris struck out Rodríguez after which aggressively bore down on the younger outfielder. Rodríguez did not respect the remedy, and shortly the 2 had been being led away from one another whereas the dugouts and bullpens cleared.
It was an odd second in a sequence that had already seen a baseball thrown from the stands at Mariners pitcher George Kirby.
On the Rangers’ facet of issues, Texas scored early towards the Angels, whereas beginning pitcher Dane Dunning threw seven scoreless innings. Aroldis Chapman and José Leclerc mixed to complete the shutout, leaving Texas needing to win solely two of 4 video games towards the Mariners to seal the division, even when the Astros sweep the D-backs.