The Red Sox can clinch a playoff spot as early as Thursday, and tonight they’ll hand the ball to their ace hoping he can carry them one step closer to realizing that goal.

Garrett Crochet (17-5, 2.69) will take the mound for the Red Sox on Wednesday in Toronto, where he’ll face off against Blue Jays right-hander and future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer (5-4, 5.06).

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While Crochet has allowed more home runs than normal recently, he is still coming off a string off three consecutive wins, most recently allowing three runs over six innings with nine strikeouts in an 11-7 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.

Barring injury or an uncharacteristic meltdown, Crochet should also surpass both the 200-inning and 250-strikeout thresholds, entering the day with 197.1 innings and 249 strikeouts.

Entering the day the Red Sox are second in the American League Wild Card race, one game ahead of both the Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers and two games up on the Houston Astros, who are currently the first team out of the field. Because the Red Sox own the tiebreaker over Houston they really have a de facto three-game cushion with five games remaining.

Boston’s magic number to clinch a playoff spot is three.

Red Sox lineup

Jarren Duran LF

Trevor Story SS

Alex Bregman 3B

Masataka Yoshida DH

Romy Gonzalez 2B

Ceddanne Rafaela CF

Nathaniel Lowe 1B

Wilyer Abreu RF

Carlos Narvaez C

Garrett Crochet

How to watch

When: 7:07 p.m.

Where: Rogers Centre, Toronto, Canada

Broadcast info: NESN, WEEI 93.7 FM, WCCM 1490 AM (Spanish), WESX 1230 AM (Spanish)