The Red Sox stayed mathematically in the race for the American League East for another day and moved closer to securing a wild card playoff spot with their win over the Blue Jays on Tuesday.

Boston is no longer trying to fend off Cleveland. The Guardians’ absurdly successful September has moved them into first place in the AL Central. They’re tied with Detroit at 85-72, but Cleveland owns the tiebreaker for now.

The Red Sox are a game ahead of the Tigers and 1½ ahead of the Astros, who played the A’s late on Tuesday.

Boston is three back of the wild-card leading Yankees. New York is just a game back of Toronto for first place in the AL East.

Here’s where things stand:

Red Sox record: 86-71

Games remaining: 5

Fan Graphs: Computer simulation gives the Red Sox an 87.1% chance of making the playoffs.

Playoff Format

Six teams make the field. The top two division winners each get a bye in the Wild Card round. The third division winner is the No. 3 seed and plays the third wild card team. The first and second wild card teams are the No. 4 and 5 seeds and play each other. The higher seed will host all the games.

AL East StandingsWLPctGBz-Toronto9067.573—z-New York8968.5671Boston8671.5484Wild CardWLPctWCGBz-New York8968.567+4Boston8671.548+1Detroit8572.541—Houston8472.538½

*Played late on Tuesday.

Z- Clinched playoff berth

Tiebreakers

The Red Sox would win tiebreaker (based on head-to-head) vs: Yankees, Astros, Guardians

The Red Sox would lose tiebreaker vs.: Blue Jays

To be determined: The Red Sox are 3-3 vs. the Mariners. The next tiebreaker, after head-to-head, is intradivisional record, which is still ongoing. The Red Sox are 0-3 vs. the Tigers with three games to go.

Magic Numbers:

1 — Any combination of Blue Jays wins and Red Sox losses makes winning the AL East impossible for the Red Sox.

3 —Any combination of Yankees wins and Red Sox losses makes home-field advantage in the best-of-three wild-card round impossible for the Red Sox.

5 — Any combination of Red Sox wins and Astros losses clinches a playoff berth for Boston.

Schedule

Tuesday’s results for AL teams in playoff contention:

Baltimore 6, Tampa Bay 0

Cleveland 5, Detroit 2

N.Y. Yankees 3, Chicago White Sox 2

Boston 4, Toronto 1

Colorado at Seattle, (late)

Houston at Athletics, (late)

Wednesday games for AL teams in playoff contention:

Detroit (Flaherty 8-14) at Cleveland (Bibee 11-11), 6:40 p.m.

Chicago White Sox (TBD) at N.Y. Yankees (Fried 18-5), 7:05 p.m.

Boston (Crochet 17-5) at Toronto (Scherzer 5-4), 7:07 p.m.

Colorado (Gordon 6-7) at Seattle (Castillo 10-8), 9:40 p.m.

Houston (Brown 12-8) at Athletics (Ginn 4-6), 10:05 p.m.

Red Sox Games Remaining: 5Wednesday at TorontoThursday at TorontoFriday vs. DetroitSaturday vs. DetroitSunday vs. DetroitIf the playoffs started today:American League Byes

No. 1 Toronto, No. 2 Seattle

Wild Card Round

Best of 3

No. 3 Cleveland vs. No. 6 Detroit

No. 4 N.Y. Yankees vs. No. 5 Boston

Best of three, all games at the better seed’s stadium

Game 1: Tuesday, Sept. 30Game 2: Wednesday, Oct. 1Game 3: Thursday, Oct. 2

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