The Yankees know they’ll be playing in the AL wild-card game on Oct. 3 Caleb Joseph Jersey , and J.A. Happ on track to be their starter. New York clinched a wild-card berth with a 3-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in 11 innings on Saturday. Happ, 6-0 with a 2.39 ERA for New York after he was acquired from Toronto, is scheduled to start Sunday against Boston and would be on normal rest next Friday at Boston and for the wild-card game. The left-hander allowed one run and two hits over six innings to win on Sept. 4 at Oakland, New York’s probable wild-card opponent.ON A ROLLThe Tampa Bay Rays will look to keep their faint postseason hopes alive behind streaking left-hander Blake Snell in their series finale against Toronto. Snell (20-5, 1.97 ERA) is 8-0 with a 1.17 ERA in his past eight starts, striking out 63 over 46 innings in that stretch. The Blue Jays will counter with lefty Ryan Borucki, who pitched eight shutout innings to beat Baltimore in his previous outing. The Rays would need a collapse by Oakland in the season’s final week to earn a wild-card berth. If not, the A’s would face the Yankees in the winner-take-all game.TWO’S ENOUGHThe Cardinals shouldn’t expect to need an offensive outburst to maintain their position in the NL wild-card race. Miles Mikolas (16-4, 3.01 ERA), who starts Sunday against San Francisco, is 16-0 when receiving two or more runs of support. St. Louis holds the second wild-card position behind the Milwaukee Brewers, with the Colorado Rockies chasing.LOOKING AHEADNow that they’ve won their first NL East crown since 2013, the Atlanta Braves can start figuring out their postseason rotation. Mike Foltynewicz has been the Braves’ most consistent starter and took a no-hitter into the seventh inning in Saturday’s division-clinching win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Kevin Gausman has been solid since coming over in a trade with Baltimore and could start Game 2 of the NL Division Series. Beyond that, the Braves have Anibal Sanchez (6-6, 3.01 ERA), Julio Teheran (16-9, 4.03) and Sean Newcomb (16-12 Roberto Alomar Jersey , 4.04). Sanchez can begin stating his case on Sunday when he pitches against the Phillies and ace Aaron Nola. The former Cubs righthander passed away Thursday."Scott Sanderson, who pitched for the Cubs for six seasons from 1984-89, passed away Thursday.This hits home for me not just because Sanderson was part of two Cubs playoff teams, posting an overall 42-24, 3.81 record with 12.2 bWAR for the Cubs, but because he was my age. That’s a scary and sobering thought as you get older, especially when hearing about the passing of a man who was a professional athlete.Beyond that, though, I knew of Sanderson when he was still in high school at Glenbrook North in Northbrook. Many times, I saw him play basketball for them against my high school, Highland Park. The linked obituary above says Sanderson led Glenbrook North to the Illinois state high school baseball championship in 1974, but I remember him as a standout basketball player, someone I thought might have had a career in the NBA.But Sanderson chose baseball, and after a standout career at Vanderbilt he was selected in the third round of the MLB draft by the Montreal Expos in 1977. He was in the big leagues the following year and had a fine year for the Expos in their one playoff season, the strike-shortened season of 1981. Here’s video of a grand slam he hit for the Expos against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, September 11, 1982 Nick Markakis Jersey , one of only two home runs he hit in his MLB career:In the 1983-84 offseason he was traded to the Cubs in a three-way trade that included the Padres; Carmelo Martinez, Craig Lefferts and Fritzie Connally went to San Diego from the Cubs. Sanderson was injured part of 1984 and made just 24 starts, but he was a mainstay in the Cubs’ rotation for that year and for five seasons after that, departing as a free agent after the 1989 season. He wound up playing 19 big-league seasons for seven teams: Cubs, Expos, Yankees, Athletics, Angels, Giants and White Sox, and after his playing career he became a player agent, with offices in Chicago and Atlanta. Per his Wikipedia page, his clients included Frank Thomas, Josh Beckett and Lance Berkman.I didn’t know Sanderson personally even though we both grew up in the north suburbs and graduated high school in the same year. But everyone who posted tributes to him after his passing said pretty much what Len Kasper did:Bob Ibach, who was the PR director of the Cubs during Sanderson’s era, told me of Sanderson, “He was always pretty private, but was very passionate about his faith Babe Ruth Jersey , always was a clubhouse leader on Sundays for chapel services,” and also passed along this note from Tony Garofalo, who was the Cubs’ trainer during that time:There have been, in fact, quite a few Vanderbilt players in MLB since Sanderson’s time, including current pitchers David Price, Walker Buehler and Sonny Gray, and position players Dansby Swanson and Curt Casali. The Vandy baseball program has become a powerhouse, and Derek Johnson, their longtime pitching coach, worked in the Cubs system for several years and is now the pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds. Before Sanderson’s time in the big leagues, there had been very few Vanderbilt players in MLB, and I can’t help thinking that Sanderson’s success had something to do with helping that school’s baseball program.My sincere condolences to Scott Sanderson’s family, friends, teammates and all who cheered for him during his baseball career.