Brandon Lowe hits one of his three home runs during the Tampa Bay Rays’ 12-2 win over the New York Yankees on Saturday in New York. Adam Hunger/Associated Press

NEW YORK — 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 career-worst seven earned runs in 2 2/3 innings. He gave up a pair of early 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 Tampa Bay.

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 is tied with Boston for the top AL wild card.

BLUE JAYS 10, ORIOLES 1: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his 47th home run and the Toronto Blue Jays pushed their AL wild-card chase to the final day of the regular season by thumping Baltimore in Toronto.

Advertisement

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 New York Yankees.

Toronto is one game behind Boston and New York, who are tied for the top AL wild card spot. Seattle began the day tied with Toronto and was playing later Saturday.

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.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

PADRES 3, GIANTS 2: San Francisco missed a chance to clinch the NL West on its own field, falling to San Diego hen Jake Cronenworth hit an RBI double in the 10th inning.

The Giants’ seven-game winning streak ended, but they still had an opportunity to win the West hours later – a loss by the second-place Los Angeles Dodgers to Milwaukee would give San Francisco the crown.

Advertisement

NOTES

DODGERS: Pitcher Clayton Kershaw returned to the injured list, days before Los Angeles begins a postseason defense of its World Series championship.

The three-time Cy Young Award winner has left forearm discomfort, the same injury that sidelined him for 57 games from Aug. 9 to Sept. 13.

Kershaw left his start Friday night against Milwaukee after 1 2/3 innings. He gave up three runs with one strikeout. He is is 10-8 with a 3.38 ERA, his highest mark since a 4.26 ERA as a rookie in 2008.

YANKEES: DJ LeMahieu has a sports hernia that will require offseason surgery, but the New York Yankees’ leadoff hitter will attempt to play through the injury in October.

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.

ROCKIES: Colorado made Bill Schmidt its permanent general manager, promoting him from the interim GM spot he’d held since May.

Copy the Story Link

Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.