{"id":862933,"date":"2026-09-27T23:26:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/862933\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T23:26:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T23:26:14","slug":"phillies-clinch-astros-wrap-up-division-on-final-day-of-mlb-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/862933\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies clinch, Astros wrap up division on final day of MLB season"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Bryce Harper and Edmundo Sosa blasted home runs as the Philadelphia Phillies punched their ticket to the playoffs with a 7-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday as the curtain came down on Major League Baseball’s regular season.<\/p>\n

The Phillies had gone into Sunday’s home game against Tampa Bay on the back of a four-game losing streak, raising the prospect of the Arizona Diamondbacks pipping them to the final spot available in the National League wild card round.<\/p>\n

But the Phillies made sure of their place in the playoffs with a clinical performance that sends them into a best-of-three series against the Atlanta Braves starting on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Phillies starting pitcher Zach Wheeler set up the victory, throwing six innings and giving up just one run with five hits and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The Phillies offense also kept the scoreboard rolling, with Bryson Stott driving in a run for Kyle Schwarber with a double in the bottom of the first inning.<\/p>\n

J.T Realmuto’s double in the bottom of the second made it 2-0 before Schwarber drove in two more runs with a sharp line drive that sent Realmuto and Trea Turner over home plate for a 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Jonny DeLuca pulled one back with a solo home run for the Rays in the fifth inning but Harper then made it 5-1 with a 366-foot solo homer.<\/p>\n

Brandon Marsh’s sacrifice fly allowed Stott to score for a 6-1 lead before Sosa’s home run made sure of victory.<\/p>\n

The only other major issue to be settled on Sunday was the winner of the American League West division, with the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers neck-and-neck with 80-81 records at the start of the day.<\/p>\n

With the Astros holding the better head-to-head record between the two teams, the Rangers needed to beat the Minnesota Twins and hope the Astros lost on the road to the Athletics in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

But the Rangers’ hopes evaporated in a 6-4 defeat to the Twins which made the Astros’ comfortable 9-0 win over the Athletics moot.<\/p>\n

The wild card rounds get under way on Tuesday, with the Phillies taking on the Braves in the National League and the fifth-seeded Chicago Cubs facing the fourth-seeded San Diego Padres in California.<\/p>\n

In the American League, the Astros will face the sixth-seeded Chicago White Sox while the fourth-seeded New York Yankees host the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

The Yankees’ final fixture of the 162-game season against the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday was cancelled as a powerful storm rolled into New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bryce Harper and Edmundo Sosa blasted home runs as the Philadelphia Phillies punched their ticket to the playoffs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-862933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}