The Sox’s first-round opponent became all but certain Wednesday night when the Tampa Bay Rays clinched the top seed in the AL with a 7-0 victory over the Houston Astros. The Astros, meanwhile, have a magic number of one to clinch the AL West with the second-place Seattle Mariners playing later Wednesday versus the Oakland Athletics.
That sets up the Sox and Astros to meet in a best-of-five AL Division Series, but home-field advantage is still at stake. The Astros lead the Sox by 1½ games for the No. 2 seed.
MLB returned to its 10-team playoff format — five teams from each league — this year after expanding the field to 16 for the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.