AL East race comes down to Sunday as Rays lose again to Blue Jays

Marc Topkin, Tampa Bay Times on Sep 27, 2025

Published in Baseball

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TORONTO — The American League East race between the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees will come down to Sunday’s final day of the season.

And the Tampa Bay Rays will have a big hand in determining the winner, with the added twist of the Yankees rooting them on.

The Jays, who beat the Rays for a second straight day Saturday, 5-1; and Yankees, who did the same to the Baltimore Orioles, 6-1; are tied at 93-68.

But the Blue Jays hold the tiebreaker, so the only way the Yankees can win the division is to beat the Orioles and hope the Rays can beat the Jays.

The Rays didn’t put up much of a battle Saturday, going down 3-0 in the second inning and scoring their lone run in the sixth when Jonathan Aranda homered for the second straight game in his return from a broken left wrist.

Though dropping to seven games under .500 for the first time since April 2018 at 77-84, the Rays avoided a last-place finish in the division as they remained two games ahead of the Orioles.

Joe Boyle started and worked five innings for the Rays, allowing four runs on five hits and three walks while striking out five. He threw 92 pitches, 55 for strikes.

The Jays got three in the second when Boyle allowed a single and a walk to start the inning, then a two-out, two-run double to Ernie Clement and an RBI single to Andres Gimenez.

Toronto made it 4-0 in the fifth when Clement led off with a single, stole second and scored on a two-out single by Nathan Lukes. It added a run in the seventh when Alejandro Kirk homered off Garrett Cleavinger.

Houser open to staying

Adrian Houser said he felt his two months and 10 starts with the Rays went OK after he was acquired from the White Sox at the July 31 trade deadline. His outing Friday capped a performance in which he went 2-3 with a 4.79 ERA.

Now the question is whether Houser, who will turn 33 in February, will stick around. He heads into free agency after a season in which he had a combined record of 8-5 with a 3.31 ERA in 21 starts.

Having bounced through six organizations since the start of 2024, Houser, understandably, wants to consider all options.

Staying with the Rays would be among them.

“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s a great group of guys here. They’re awesome. I’ve jelled really well with them over the last two months, been having a lot of fun. So definitely not going to take anybody off the board, and always going to be open to everything.

“Definitely being comfortable here, it’d be nice. It’d be a nice, familiar fit. So we’ll just see what happens and take it easy.”

Manager Kevin Cash said he liked what he saw from Houser.

“He’s a competitor,” Cash said. “I’d love to see him around, but I know he’s got some decisions to make this offseason.”

On the run

The Rays started play Saturday needing three stolen bases to tie the franchise single-season record of 194 set by the 2009 team led by Carl Crawford (who stole 60), BJ Upton (42) and Jason Bartlett (30).

Cash said the current Rays, led by Chandler Simpson (44 steals) and Jake Mangum (27), are going about their thievery well.

“We’ve got a team that was built with a lot of speed; we knew that coming out of spring training,” Cash said. “I think our guys have done a good job of making probably better decisions this year on the bases than we have in the past.

I mean, it’s highlighted — (Jose Caballero, who was traded July 31 to the Yankees), he did a lot of good things. Chandler, Jake, those guys, they’re very mindful in their decision-making. We’re just not running wild. We’re doing it to help us win games, and I commend them for that."

Pitching in

Since making an unexpected big-league debut in June as a reliever at Fenway Park and spending much of the rest of the season with the Rays, lefty Ian Seymour will cap his eventful season with a start Sunday in Game 162.

“Looking back on the year and where I started and where I finished, being here is just obviously something I’m so grateful for,” he said. “I’m just going to put everything I have into making it go into the offseason on a good note.”

Seymour is 4-2 with an 2.85 ERA in 18 games, including four starts.

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