On the verge of assuring at least a tiebreaker for a playoff berth, the Baltimore Orioles stumbled.
Tyler Austin tied the score with a seventh-inning home run, Austin Romine and Brett Gardner drove in two runs each in the eighth and the New York Yankees rallied from a three-run deficit to beat the Orioles 7-3 Saturday.
Tomorrow is what we've been playing the whole season for anyway," Orioles catcher Matt Wieters said.
Baltimore (88-73), which blew a 3-0 lead, fell into a tie with Toronto (88-73) for the two AL wild-card spots when the Blue Jays beat Boston 4-3. But because the Blue Jays beat Baltimore 10-9 in the season series, the Orioles might have cost themselves their chance to play host to the wild-card game.
Detroit (86-74) fell 1½ games behind, and Seattle (86-74) was playing a game against Oakland later Saturday.
With the score 3-3 against the already-eliminated Yankees, All-Star setup man Brad Brach relieved with one out in the eighth and walked Jacoby Ellsbury. Chase Headley followed with his second double of the game, and Romine singled to left over the drawn-in infield to score both runners.
Brach walked Ronald Torreyes with two outs, Oliver Drake relieved and Gardner doubled to left.
Toronto 4, Boston 3: Ezequiel Carrera hit a ninth-inning sacrifice fly off Craig Kimbrel to give the Blue Jays the lead after the host Red Sox tied it in the eighth on a balk. Boston fell one-half game behind Cleveland in the race for home-field advantage when their Division Series series begins on Thursday.
