AL wild-card roundup: Blue Jays can’t gain ground despite beating Rangers

Despite a win over the Texas Rangers on Sunday, the Toronto Blue Jays will end the day in the same position that they began in.

The Blue Jays improved to 77-79 with their victory in Arlington, but remain three games behind the Chicago White Sox in the American League wild-card picture after the Southsiders' win over the Detroit Tigers.

In addition to Chicago's triumph at home to close its series against Detroit, the Cleveland Guardians held serve in its position atop the AL Central with a their fifth straight win.

Texas, meanwhile, stayed in the AL West lead, thanks to the Houston Astros' loss to the NL East-champion Atlanta Braves.

With six games to go before the end of the regular season, Toronto's playoff hopes have firmly entered long shot territory.

Toronto: at Baltimore, 6:35 p.m., Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ Cleveland : Off Texas: Off Chicago White Sox: Off Houston: Off Baltimore: vs. Blue Jays, 6:35 p.m., Sportsnet, Sportsnet+

ARLINGTON, Texas — Toronto leadoff hitter Brett Bateman reached base and scored three times, twice knocked in by Nathan Lukes, and the Blue Jays beat the AL West-leading Texas Rangers 7-2 on Sunday to avoid a series sweep in the matchup of playoff hopefuls.

Bateman walked twice against Texas starter Jacob deGrom (11-10), scoring on a sacrifice fly by Lukes in the first and a go-ahead RBI single by Kazuma Okamota in the fifth. Bateman had a leadoff double to ignite a four-run seventh, scoring on a single by Lukes.

With six games remaining, the Rangers (78-78) kept a one-game lead in the AL West after Houston (77-79) lost 4-2 at home to NL East champion Atlanta. The Astros own the division tiebreaker.

Spencer Arrighetti (9-9), the second of seven Blue Jays pitchers, got the win despite giving up the only Texas runs over his two innings.

CLEVELAND — Gavin Williams threw seven shutout innings, Jo Adell had an RBI infield single and the Cleveland Guardians beat the Athletics 1-0 Sunday to remain atop the AL Central.

Steven Kwan added three hits for Cleveland, which posted its seventh series sweep of the season and third at home.

The Guardians (81-75) are 1 1/2 games in front of the Chicago White Sox. They finish the season on the road with series against Boston and Kansas City.

Williams (14-8) gave up three hits and struck out nine to move into the major-league lead with 244 strikeouts. He has one more than Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski. Toronto’s Dylan Cease is in third with 239. It is the 13th time in 31 starts this season that the right-hander has had at least nine strikeouts.