AL East champ Blue Jays rest starters in rainy loss to O’s

With rain delaying the final game of their series against the Baltimore Orioles, the Blue Jays have a magic number of three to clinch the top seed in the American League.

Major League Baseball launched a fun quiz this morning on their Cut4 blog, allowing visitors to figure out which Toronto Blue Jay best suits their preferences in ballpark food, equipment and snacks. The official attendance was announced at 18,257, but the place was nearly deserted.

“We want to win home field”, Gibbons said.

A few marquee players – he asked they not be named – have a reputation for appealing calls more than others, particularly when they’re in a contract year and using their personal stats as leverage in multi-million-dollar negotiations. The cleaning staff had done a good job of restoring the room, but for the heartiest partiers, cleaning out the personal cobwebs would take more time.

The Blue Jays didn’t just win the A.L. East, the team did it convincingly.

Williams said he played “around 20 to 25” games at centre back before coming to Toronto, so it wasn’t exactly new to him.

“Obviously, Manny, he was the difference-maker today on both sides of the ball”, Orioles manager Buck Showalter said.

Machado hit his second homer of the game in the sixth, part of a 3-for-4 day at the plate.

Baltimore Orioles’ Manny Machado rounds second base after hitting a… We had our industry’s “GURUs” working on it for over a year and their determination was our area just was not going to produce the results. “You can’t replace 40, no matter how you do it. [Davis] likes it here, but it’s not about what you like when it comes to business”.

Toronto has chose to push Price back to later in the week, not for injury reasons, but simply so its ace doesn’t have such a long break between starts. For one thing, I love my partner, our time is valuable and she cares only about the Blue Jays because I do so deeply. Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, and Edwin Encarnacion saw no action.

Chris Davis and Steve Pearce then sandwiched doubles around a hit batter for a 3-0 lead.

In order for this home field advantage to benefit the Blue Jays, they and the Kansas City Royals would need to advance to the American League Championship Series and go the full seven games. Grounds crew attacked the playing field to do damage control but a steady drizzle meant a no-win situation, and so the game was called to a halt. Jones, who has made it clear he would like to voice his opinion to ownership, was mum on if he had anything specific in the works. Adam Warren and Wei-Yin Chen are the scheduled starting pitchers.

Blue Jays: SS Troy Tulowitzki (shoulder, back) could return Friday night “or definitely Saturday”, Gibbons said.

Having accomplished the first two goals, which, make no mistake, is a magnificent feat for a team that was 50-51 near the end of July, Gibbons seems to be content to let the first-overall chips fall where they may.

Groundskeepers try to dry out the infield during a rain delay in a baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays, Thursday, October 1, 2015, in Baltimore.