The Rays lost today, and the Blue Jays won. In order to get the first Wild Card and earn the right to play at home, the Mariners would have had to both sweep the Tigers in four games, including a double-header—always a tricky proposition—and hope the Blue Jays drop their two final games to the Orioles. Unlikely, but technically possible.
The Mariners did not do that, dropping the first game of the series against the lowly Tigers. It’s a bummer because even if they had lost a game later in the series, the Mariners—if they’d opened up this series looking like they were gunning for the sweep—could have pushed Toronto into the position of having to use one of their frontline starters to secure home field advantage as their rotation was set to turn over on Wednesday.