NEW YORK (AP) — Red Sox–Yankees in late September — as sure a thing as exists for baseball’s schedule makers. AL East powers Brock Holt Jersey , historic foes, duking it out for a division title.Not this time. With Boston’s iron grip on the majors’ best record, New York is going into the upcoming series against its longtime rival with a rather mundane mantra.“Trying to get right,” manager Aaron Boone said.Dellin Betances blew a one-run lead in the eighth inning, sending the Yankees stumbling into their midweek set against baseball’s top team with a 3-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday.The Yankees maintained a 1½-game lead over Oakland for the top AL wild card after the A’s lost to the Rays 5-4. New York has a magic number of six to clinch a playoff spot after dropping two of three to Toronto. The Yankees are 7-10 in their past 17 games.“We have to play better, clearly,” Boone said. “We’re not playing our best right now. But the history of this game is littered with stories of teams that went into the playoffs in different scenarios. Limping, playing great. The bottom line is you have to be playing right when it counts. Don’t mistake that for, ‘This is OK,’ but I still believe at my core that we have everyone in that room to do something special.”New York opens a three-game home series against Boston on Tuesday afternoon. The Red Sox are assured of no worse than a wild card, lead the AL East by 11½ games and would clinch the division with one win in the Bronx.The Yankees hope Aaron Judge can help keep Boston’s bubbly corked. Boone said the All-Star slugger could return to the lineup during the series. Judge hasn’t been cleared to hit against live pitching since breaking his right wrist July 26 http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-rusney-castillo-jersey , though he’s been hitting off a high-velocity pitching machine and feels no discomfort while swinging. The Yankees are 26-22 since Judge was injured.“Sooner the better,” Judge said of his return.Betances (4-6) allowed hits to four of his first five batters, including a tying single by pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez and a go-ahead double by Randal Grichuk. Betances has lost in two of his past three appearances.“This one’s on me,” Betances said. “I take the blame on this one.”Toronto closer Ken Giles struck out Gary Sanchez with a runner on to end his second save in two days. The hard-throwing right-hander has 10 saves since he was acquired from Houston and 22 overall this season.Lance Lynn covered five one-run innings with 80 pitches for New York, and David Robertson followed with two hitless innings for his longest outing of the season. That preserved a 2-1 lead from Andrew McCutchen’s leadoff homer and Didi Gregorius‘ sacrifice fly in the first.Betances couldn’t hold that edge. He only escaped the eighth after a baserunning blunder by Tellez led to an out at home plate before Teoscar Hernandez flied out to center. Betances also struck out a batter, extending his AL record to 41 consecutive relief appearances with a punchout.Yankees star Giancarlo Stanton singled and reached third on a two-base error with two outs in the eighth, but Mark Leiter Jr. struck out Aaron Hicks swinging to strand him.McCutchen hit his fourth homer with the Yankees on the second pitch from Thomas Pannone (3-1), and Gregorius added his RBI later that inning.Pannone faced the minimum over the next five innings, then stranded two runners in the seventh. He allowed four hits and two runs over seven innings, striking out six. The soft-tossing rookie left-hander was making his fourth start, including impressive outings against the Orioles and AL Central champion Indians.“They ambushed him but I thought he was really good tonight Chris Sale Jersey ,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said. “He worked himself out of it and kept the game in check.”Reese McGuire got his first major league RBI in the third with a double that cut New York’s lead to 2-1.LOOK OUT!Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez leveled third baseman Miguel Andujar chasing down a foul popup in the fourth inning. Sanchez caught the ball while Andujar slammed to the ground, though Andujar bounced up quickly and remained in the game.KIDS COMINGPitchers Justus Sheffield and Domingo German will join the Yankees for Tuesday’s game. The left-handed Sheffield is one of New York’s top starting pitching prospects but worked out of the bullpen down the stretch with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to prepare for a September call-up.TRAINER’S ROOMYankees: Boone said Judge is “getting real close” to returning to the lineup. He’s only cleared to run the bases and play the outfield for now. Judge said he’s been “feeling good for a while.” … LHP Aroldis Chapman (left knee tendinitis) is set to throw a simulated game Monday or Tuesday, possibly with Judge at the plate.UP NEXTBlue Jays: LHP Ryan Borucki (3-4, 4.26 ERA) starts the opener of a three-game series at Baltimore on Monday. The Orioles had yet to announce a starter.Yankees: LHP J.A. Happ (16-6, 3.75) will face Red Sox RHP Nathan Eovaldi (5-7, 4.22) in a matchup of midseason acquisitions. SEATTLE — The Oakland Athletics won their battle with the Tampa Bay Rays for an American League wild-card playoff spot Monday night.And now they become the Rays’ best friend.With just five games remaining after Monday’s 7-3 win at Seattle, the A’s (95-62) need help from the Rays and/or the Boston Red Sox if they are to pass the New York Yankees (96-60) for the AL’s first wild card.Article continues below ...That now becomes the A’s goal, with the holder of the top wild card earning the home-field advantage in the single-elimination game next week.The A’s were able to stay within 1 1/2 games of the Yankees, winners earlier in the evening at Tampa Bay, despite knowing they had already clinched a playoff berth by virtue of the Rays’ loss.The A’s will need a similar businesslike approach when left-hander Brett Anderson (4-5, 3.96) duels with Mariners righty Mike Leake (10-10 http://www.redsoxproshops.com/authentic-craig-kimbrel-jersey , 4.10) in the second game of the series on Tuesday night.Presumably, the Oakland clubhouse will have dried after a wild celebration following Monday’s win that assured the A’s first postseason appearance since 2014.“This is not a surprise to anybody in our locker room,” A’s manager Bob Melvin gushed afterward. Oakland had finished 2017 with a 75-87 record, a full 10 games out of the final wild-card spot.“We knew we had (the playoff spot) once the game started, but it was kinda cool to finish it off like this,” Melvin continued. “You want to do it the right way. You don’t want to lose and then go in there and celebrate. This is the way you want to do it.”Jonathan Lucroy, Jed Lowrie, Khris Davis and Matt Chapman homered in Monday’s win, and now they’ll set their sights on Leake, who had shut out the A’s on two hits over eight innings on Aug. 15, two weeks before getting shelled for six runs and 11 hits in 4 1/3 innings in a rematch.Chapman and Stephen Piscotty had first-inning home runs off Leake in a five-run explosion that helped produce a 7-5 victory at a point when the Mariners also were competing for a wild-card spot.Leake has made seven lifetime starts against the A’s Steven Wright Jersey , going 1-2 with a 3.48 ERA.Anderson matched Leake pitch-for-pitch for 7 2/3 innings in the Aug. 15 contest, leaving a scoreless game in the bottom of the eighth.The Mariners went on to win the game 2-0 on a Dee Gordon home run in the 12th inning.Gordon also homered, just his fourth of the season, in Monday’s loss. He’s gone 3-for-9 without an extra-base hit in his career against Anderson.The 30-year-old has pitched brilliantly at Safeco Field in his career, going 3-2 with a 1.20 ERA in nine games, including eight starts.He’s 8-4 with a 1.82 ERA overall against the Mariners in 18 meetings (17 starts).The Mariners (85-71), who finish the season with four games against Texas, need to win five of their remaining six to reach the 90-win mark for just the sixth time in franchise history, the first time since 1997.