The Yankees’ pursuit of the American League East title officially ended late Saturday afternoon, when the Boston Red Sox completed a 6-3 victory over the Houston Astros for their 93rd win of the season, a mark the Yankees cannot match. Unofficially, the chase ended about an hour earlier, when the Red Sox opened a 5-0 lead, rendering the Yankees’ 2-0 lead over the Toronto Blue Jays essentially meaningless.
But up to that point, as division races go, you couldn’t get much tighter than the one that was being played out in real time, about 200 miles apart, between the Yankees and the Red Sox.