AL wild-card roundup: Division battles close while Blue Jays trail

With just over one week to go in the season, the Toronto Blue Jays are in a battle with four other teams for the third wild-card spot.

But those four other teams have one advantage the Blue Jays do not: A path into the playoffs by winning their division.

Three of those teams were in action on Thursday and the race is still tight after those results.

The Houston Astros (77-76) moved into the AL West lead with a win over the Kansas City Royals. The Texas Rangers (76-77) lost to the Boston Red Sox to miss a chance to pull into a tie with the Astros, although Houston owns the tiebreaker.

In the Central, the Chicago White Sox (78-75) moved ahead of the idle Cleveland Guardians (78-75) for the division lead via a tiebreaker after a win over the Detroit Tigers. The Guardians remain in the third wild-card spot, two games up on the Rangers and Blue Jays.

All of that sets up a huge series as the Blue Jays travel to Arlington for three games against the Rangers this weekend. Here is how the American League standings look ahead of that crucial series.

Cleveland : vs. Athletics, 7:10 p.m., Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet+ Chicago White Sox: vs. Detroit Tigers, 7:40 p.m., Sportsnet+ Toronto : at Texas, 8:05 p.m., Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ Houston: vs. Atlanta, 8:10 p.m. Baltimore: vs. Brewers, 7:05 p.m.

ARLINGTON, Texas — Trevor Story hit a three-run home run off All-Star closer Jacob Latz in the eighth inning, capping a comeback from a three-run deficit as the Boston Red Sox beat Texas 4-3 on Thursday night and dropped the Rangers out of the AL West lead.

Texas (76-77) had won four straight games to gain a share of the lead but dropped one game behind Houston (77-76), which holds the tiebreaker. The Rangers trail by two games for the last AL wild card.

Boston (83-70) has a five-game lead for the top AL wild card and improved to 8-59 when trailing after seven innings. Texas dropped to 63-2 when leading after seven innings.

Latz (3-3) entered after Wilyer Abreu walked starting the eighth and Willson Contreras was hit by a pitch from Jakob Junis.

Latz struck out Adley Rutschman and Story, who is from nearby Irving, reached down for Latz's second straight low curveball and drove the ball over the left-field wall for his fourth home run this season.

Boston’s Wyatt Olds (2-0) got three outs and Garrett Whitlock pitched the ninth for his fourth save in eight chances, getting Jake Burger to ground into a game-ending double play.

Josh Jung hit a first-inning homer off Sonny Gray, and Texas opened a 3-0 lead in the second on Danny Jansen's RBI single and Evan Carter's safety squeeze bunt.