Wild Card Race, Among Other Things, Tightening

Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight, if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks, you'd have a diamond.

-- Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The Yankees went into last night's game with the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre in great shape. If Gerrit Cole had pitched like he usually does, it would have put the Yankees inches away from clinching the American League Wild Card race.

But, as Joe Garagiola put it, "Baseball is a funny game." Cole allowed 5 runs in 6 innings. He did strike out 6 batters, to give him 243 on the season. This means that, unless you starts on Sunday (3 days' rest not a good idea), he has finished the regular season with, in addition to a 16-8 record, the 2nd-highest strikeout total in Yankee history, behind the 248 of Ron Guidry in 1978.

The Yankees bailed him out, though. They trailed 4-0 after 4 innings and 5-2 after 5. But they tied the game 5-5 in the 7th. But Clay Holmes, who has been pretty good so far, served up a home run to Bo Bichette to give the Jays a 6-5 win.

So here's how things stand: The Yankees hold the lead by 1 game, over the Boston Red Sox; the Seattle Mariners are half a game behind, and the Jays a half-game behind that. The race is tightening.

Tonight, Corey Kluber starts the finale of the Jays series, against Robbie Ray, one of the favorites for the AL Cy Young Award. The Red Sox finish their series with the Baltimore Orioles, and the O's gave us a huge help by beating the Sox on Monday. The Mariners are not scheduled to play.

Then, tomorrow, the last series of the regular season begins. The Yankees play at home to the Tampa Bay Rays, who clinched the best record in the AL last night, and might not seem to have anything to play for, but would love to knock the Yankees down, if only for spite. That's the kind of organization they are.

And if we can't count on Cole to pitch well -- and he wouldn't be available, anyway -- well, and they said in Star Wars, "I've got a bad feeling about this."

The Red Sox play away to the Washington Nationals, a team they should be able to handle. The Jays host the O's, giving them the easiest remaining schedule of the 4. And the Mariners play at home to the Los Angeles Angels.

The Mariners' finale won't be until 9:10 PM Pacific Time, so we might not know for sure where the Yankees stand even at midnight.