Division titles up for grabs on season's last day

Jonny Gomes smacked a solo home run and Oakland beat Texas 3-1, leaving the playoff-bound clubs deadlocked for a division lead entering the last day of the Major League Baseball season. Two American League divisional crowns will be decided on the final day of the six-month campaign, with Oakland and Texas in a one-game showdown for the AL West title and the New York Yankees fighting Baltimore in the AL East. Those four clubs and the AL Central division champion Detroit Tigers have qualified for the playoffs. But the teams who fail to claim division crowns on Wednesday face a one-game showdown on Friday to determine which will advance. The Texas Rangers, two-time defending AL champions who lost the World Series in 2010 and 2011, have lost two in a row at Oakland to leave them level atop the AL West with the A's at 93-68. The Yankees, 94-67, rallied to edge Boston 4-3 to stay one game ahead of Baltimore, 93-68, in the AL East as Raul Ibanez hit a game-tying two-run homer in the ninth and knocked in the winning run with a single in the 12th inning. Baltimore stayed on New York's heels with a 1-0 victory at Tampa Bay but the Yankees can clinch the division crown and a home-field edge throughout the AL playoffs by beating Boston on Wednesday or if the Orioles lose at Tampa Bay. Should the Yankees lose and Orioles win again at Tampa Bay, a one-game playoff would be held Thursday to break the division title deadlock. At Oakland, Texas slugger Josh Hamilton doubled in Ian Kinsler in the third inning to open the scoring Tuesday. But the A's took a 2-1 lead in the fifth when Derek Norris singled to score Josh Donaldson, and Brandon Moss scored from third on a fielding error by the Rangers' Nelson Cruz. Gomes added an insurance run with a homer in the sixth. At New York, Ibanez drove in Francisco Cervelli in the 12th for the victory following his two-run homer that equalized for the hosts after Boston's James Loney hit a solo homer in the ninth for a 3-1 Red Sox lead. Chris Davis hit a solo homer in the fourth inning off James Shields for the only run in Baltimore's triumph. Davis homered for a sixth game in a row, matching the Orioles' club record homer streak set by Reggie Jackson between July 18 and 23, 1976.