Reds, Nationals are first to secure playoff spots
The Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals both won their 91st games Thursday to become the first teams to clinch National League playoff spots.
Cincinnati topped the Chicago Cubs, 5-3, and the Reds did so without Manager Dusty Baker, who remained in a Chicago hospital to undergo more tests for an irregular heartbeat.
Baker, 63, was expected to return to Cincinnati on Friday, but it wasn’t immediately known if he would manage the game against the Dodgers on Friday night.
The Dodgers headed to Cincinnati from Washington after losing, 4-1, to the Nationals.
Washington leads the NL East and the Reds are atop the NL Central, and each is now assured of at least a wild-card spot.
It’s the first time the nation’s capital will have a baseball team in the postseason in 79 years.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ bid to reach the playoffs as the second NL wild-card team slipped further away.
The St. Louis Cardinals still hold the second wild-card spot after defeating the Houston Astros, 5-4. (The Atlanta Braves are comfortably leading for the other NL wild-card berth.)
So the Dodgers now are not only three games behind St. Louis in the wild-card race, they’ve also fallen half a game behind the red-hot Milwaukee Brewers.
Milwaukee won its fifth consecutive game with a 9-7 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
In the American League, the Oakland Athletics ended a three-game losing streak with a 12-4 win over the Detroit Tigers. The A’s and the Baltimore Orioles each have 85-64 records and hold the two AL wild-card spots.
The Athletics are four games behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the AL West.
After losing to the Rangers, 3-1, on Thursday, the Angels are 41/2 games behind the A’s and Orioles and a wild-card spot.
The Chicago White Sox lost to the Kansas City Royals, 4-3, so they still lead the AL Central by two games over of the Tigers.
And the New York Yankees defeated the Toronto Blue Jays, 10-7, to lead the AL East by one game over the Orioles.
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