David Price pitched a complete game, his fourth of the season, beating the Texas Rangers 5-2 to get the Tampa Bay Rays into the Wednesday night American League Wild Card game against the Cleveland Indians.
"I wish I could explain it," said Rays third baseman Evan Longoria. "I wish I could bottle it up and take it through 161 games and not have it be on the last day."
Longoria went 3-for-4, driving in two runs, belting a home run and scoring two runs while Price (10-8) held Texas to two runs on seven hits, walking a batter while striking out four, and picking off two runners in the first three innings.
"It's not a surprise he came through in the big moment," said Rays manager Joe Maddon. "That's just who he is."
Texas had to win seven games in a row late in the season to force the tiebreaker game - the first since 2007. All-Star right fielder Nelson Cruz, who had 27 home runs and 76 RBIs before serving his 50-game suspension for breaking Major League Baseball's drug policy, returned back to the lineup going 0-for-4, grounding out to the shortstop for the final out of the game.
"We made a run at the end, but we just didn't get it done," said Texas manager Ron Washington. "I got no excuse for that."
The Rays head to Cleveland, who ended the season atop the American League Wild Card standings after beating the Minnesota Twins 5-1 Sunday afternoon in a tight seven-team wild card race that also included the Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, and Kansas City Royals.
The Cleveland Indians will start rookie Danny Salazar in the AL Wild-card game. Salazar has made 10 starts this year and has a 3.12 ERA, striking out 65 batters in 52 innings pitched.
"We wouldn't do it if we didn't believe in him," said Cleveland manager Terry Francona.
The winner of the one-game wild-card playoff travels to Boston for Friday's start of a five-game American League Divisional play-off series.