TORONTO -- Tampa Bay's stirring September run took a sudden sour turn in Toronto.
Justin Smoak homered with two outs in the ninth inning to give the Blue Jays a 9-8 victory over the Rays on Thursday night, dealing a blow to Tampa Bay's wild-card playoff hopes.
"This one definitely puts us in a very difficult position," Rays infielder Matt Duffy said. "We're going to bounce back, we're going to do what we can. Mathematically we're still in it so we're going to keep going until this thing is over."
The Rays entered having won five straight and a major league-high 14 games in September, a surge that had brought them within 5 1-2 games of Oakland in the race for the AL's second wild card.