Orioles can tie for top wild card tonight

Now it's really on.

The Yankees beat the Blue Jays last night despite their best efforts to blow a ninth-inning lead, and the Orioles are one game away from the top wild card. They're two ahead of the Tigers and Mariners for the second wild card.

They got a lot done despite not playing last night.

The Jays are listing Aaron Sanchez, Francisco Liriano and Marcus Stroman as their starters for the three-game series in Toronto. The Orioles are starting Kevin Gausman, Chris Tillman and Ubaldo Jimenez.

The Orioles are 7-9 against the Blue Jays and need a sweep to win a tie-breaker if a home wild card game is on the line. They're 2-5 at Rogers Centre, matching their record at Yankee Stadium, where they conclude the regular season.

The last three-game sweep in Toronto came in April 2005. If nothing else, they're certainly due.

The Orioles went 3-6 in Toronto last year and have posted one winning record since 2005. They were 5-4 in 2014.

Anyone remember the 0-9 stretch in 2010?

Gausman established career highs last season with eight innings and 10 strikeouts in an 8-1 victory in Game 2 of a Sept. 30 doubleheader. Chris Davis homered twice.

Davis is a career .321/.418/.714 hitter with 15 doubles, 17 home runs and 40 RBIs in 168 at-bats at Rogers Centre. It's the most doubles, home runs and RBIs in any ballpark that he hasn't called home in his career, the obvious exceptions being in Arlington, Texas, and Baltimore.

Adam Jones has hit 17 home runs at Rogers Centre, his highest total on the road. His 38 RBIs are two fewer than his total at Fenway Park.

Gausman's 3.57 ERA in 28 starts equals his 2014 ERA in 20 starts. It was down to 3.43 before his last outing against the Red Sox, when he surrendered five runs and 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings in a 5-2 loss.

Gausman has faced the Blue Jays twice in Toronto this season, allowing two earned runs (three total) in 6 1/3 innings in a 4-3 loss on June 10 and six runs and six hits in three innings in a 6-5 loss on July 29.

In 11 career games against the Blue Jays, Gausman has gone 2-2 with a 4.15 ERA and 1.410 WHIP in 39 innings. He's set to make his seventh start against them.

The discrepancy between his home and road results have been reported to excess, and I'm doing it again. He's 6-2 with a 2.67 ERA in 12 starts at Camden Yards and 2-9 with a 4.36 ERA in 16 road starts.

Edwin Encarnacion is 1-for-13 with a home run against Gausman. Jose Bautista is 1-for-10 with a home run.

Darwin Barney is 4-for-7 with a home run.

Sanchez is 3-0 with a 3.38 ERA in four starts against the Orioles this season and 4-2 with a 4.20 ERA in 12 career games, including seven starts.

Davis is 6-for-14 with a double and three home runs versus Sanchez. Jonathan Schoop is 7-for-15.

Jones is 2-for-17 with a home run and Mark Trumbo is 2-for-13.

Manager Buck Showalter talked about how quickly the season has passed despite the grind, how it didn't seem so long ago that we were gathered in Sarasota.

A team that's holding onto the second wild card spot didn't win its first exhibition game until March 12 against the Twins, the same day that catcher Matt Wieters exited with elbow soreness.

"If you notice how we do spring training, we get right on the cusp of fines - and I'm not saying we haven't - of who we play," Showalter said. "We know who we are and who we're not and we're going to get to know people in the spring. And the first 10-12 days, you go back and look at those lineups, we had to find out about a lot of people.

"We had to play (Hyun Soo) Kim every day, we had to play Joey Rickard, a Rule 5. And we did."

Baseball's insistence that the teams send a specific amount of regulars on the road infuriates Showalter, who doesn't want Major League Baseball dictating how he prepares for the regular season and evaluates the players on his camp roster. And who's to say which players qualify as regulars?

"That's what amazes me is they're going to tell us, from some rule, how to get a club ready for the spring and how to make good evaluations," Showalter said. "It would be like them telling us right now who we have to play. It's going to be even more next year. The first game is Feb. 24 next year.

"What was the Boston Red Sox's record in spring training the year they last won the world championship? Nobody really knows, right?"

Google is our friend.

The Red Sox were 17-17 in 2013. The Orioles went 19-9, the second-best Grapefruit League record in the American League, but they missed the playoffs.