Astros Daily: Yankees and Guardians keep winning, helping to try and solidify first round byes

Cleveland continues to come for the one seed with the Royals right behind them.

The team had a day off yesterday, so they could sit back and watch some of the other teams in the American League compete for their playoff spot and seed. With the Astros still sitting in the third seed, all eyes center around the Seattle Mariners, who are still less than five games back of the division and the wildcard.

As the season begins to near its end, let’s take a quick look around the league at some of the teams that played yesterday and could impact the Astros’ postseason chances in the first edition of Astros’ Daily.

New York Yankees (83-61): 10, Kansas City Royals (79-66): 4

With the teams’ day off, the next most important game for the Astros yesterday was the Yankees-Royals game. With the Astros currently as the three seed, the order of the wild card is extremely important. Currently, the Royals are the 5^th seed and would face off against the 4^th seed in the first round, so every game for the Royals matters right now.

An RBI single got KC on the board first in just the first inning before they tacked on another run just a couple of innings later with a Salvy Parez homer, putting them up 2-0 in the 3^rd inning.

The Yankees didn’t stay quiet for long though, as they would quickly take the lead just an inning later after a throwing error allowed a run to score and an Alex Verdugo 2-run blast. KC would quickly tie it back up and even take the lead again until the Yankees finally started banging.

A 4-run seventh followed by a 3-run eighth would give the Yankees a massive 10-4 lead that they closed out the game with. This win keeps the Yankees one game ahead of the Guardians and in the one seed while the Royals fall to 2.5 games back of the first-place wildcard spot.

Boston Red Sox (73-71): 12, Baltimore Orioles (82-63): 3

In a game between the top seed in the wildcard and the first team out, it kind of started back and forth before the Sox took off with it.

After the teams traded runs in the first, back-to-back one-out bombs from Rob Refsnyder and Tyler O’Neill gave Boston a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the third and they never let go of it.

A bases-loaded walk in the fourth gave the O’s a second run, but the Sox answered back a few innings later again with a 4-run sixth inning, putting them up 8-2 and putting the game away. Anthony Santander popped his 40^th home run of the season in the game, but it was not enough to come back.

Before the game was over though, in the bottom of the eighth inning, Refsnyder and O’Neill would go back-to-back one more time to bring the score to its final 12-3.

This is the third loss in a row for the O’s, who are still 5.5 games in front of the top seed in the wildcard. At the same time, this win put Boston within three games of the final wildcard spot which, as of right now, would be the Astros first-round matchup.

Games that also matter

LA Angles: 6, Minnesota Twins: 2

With the Twins’ fourth loss in a row, this brings them to only a three-game lead in the Wildcard for the last spot. With teams like the Red Sox, Tigers, and Mariners all still competing for a Wildcard spot, the Twins are the team they are eyeing right now. As said earlier in the article, whoever has that last spot will match up against the ‘Stros, so there will be close eyes kept on those teams.

Cleveland Guardians: 5, Chicago White Sox: 3

The Guardians continue to win games and keep pace with the Yankees for first in the American League. With the Astros five games back of them for second, every game matters for these teams. If the Guardians start losing games like they have been these past few weeks or so, it is still possible for the Astros to catch up to them and get that first-round bye that is still up for grabs. But, if they keep getting matched up against teams like the White Sox, the Astros have no chance.