Guardians clinch playoff berth to set AL field, Astros eliminated

The American League playoff field is set.

The Cleveland Guardians beat the Texas Rangers 3-2 on Saturday to clinch a postseason berth for the second straight year, completing their remarkable late-season turnaround. C.J. Kayfus sent the Guardians to October the hard way, taking a walk-off hit-by-pitch to score the winning run in the bottom of the ninth.

"It's exactly us. Of course we're going to get in on a walk-off hit-by-pitch," manager Stephen Vogt said postgame, according to The Associated Press. "Just to stop and think about where we came from to get here, there's no words. I couldn't be more proud of these guys. They've earned every bit of this."

The Guardians' clinch means the Houston Astros are officially eliminated and will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Houston needed to win both of its remaining games and have one of either Cleveland or the Detroit Tigers lose out. The Tigers clinched their spot earlier Saturday when they beat the Boston Red Sox.

Stephen Vogt's Guardians were 15.5 games behind the Tigers on July 8. They acted as sellers at the trade deadline and sat 10.5 games back of Detroit at the start of September. Then the Guardians caught fire, reeling off a 10-game winning streak and going 19-7 during the month to catch the Tigers and earn their fourth playoff berth since 2020.

The Tigers and Guardians are now once again tied atop the AL Central at 87-74. Cleveland owns the tiebreaker between the teams, meaning it can clinch the division and home-field advantage in the wild-card series with a win Sunday. The Tigers have to finish ahead of the Guardians in order to claim the AL's No. 3 seed.

Cleveland will start Logan Allen in Sunday's season finale, according to Zack Meisel of The Athletic. The decision allows the Guardians to start Gavin Williams in Game 1 of the wild-card series. Detroit is taking a similar approach, choosing to start Chris Paddack in Boston on Sunday instead of ace Tarik Skubal.

The Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees, and Seattle Mariners make up the rest of the AL's postseason field. Seattle is locked into the No. 2 seed and will host the winner of the No. 3-versus-No. 6 wild-card series in the ALDS. The rest of the seeding and matchups will be determined Sunday.