This is the fifth installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.

The Mariners haven’t reached the postseason since 2001, and all season long, our Playoff Odds have strongly suggested that their drought — the majors’ longest active one — will continue. But as we head into the final weekend of the 2021 season, they’re on a 10-1 tear that has interjected them right into the thick of an American League Wild Card race with a decided East Coast bias. With the Yankees sweeping the Red Sox in Boston and then taking two out of three from the Blue Jays in Toronto while the Red Sox somehow dropped two out of three to the Orioles in Baltimore, we now have four teams separated by three games from top to bottom, with just three to play for each:

This is not a drill! I’ll get to the mechanics of how this will be sorted out soon enough, but first, I’m taking the opportunity to spotlight the Mariners’ unlikely run and the trends they’re up against. This isn’t a dive into individual performances; elsewhere on FanGraphs today, Jake Mailhot has a closer look at what’s fueled their September run. Here I’m looking at the bigger picture. But first, an illustration of the Mariners’ Playoff Odds over the course of the season:

It’s been awhile since the Mariners were anywhere close to this position. While they went 89-73 just three years ago before slipping below .500 in both 2019 (68-94) and ’20 (27-33), that ’18 squad fell eight games short in the AL Wild Card race and finished 14 games behind the Astros in the AL West race. They did finish three games back in the AL Wild Card race in 2016, going 86-76 while both the Orioles and Blue Jays went 89-73, but they were a distant nine games behind the Rangers in the AL West. Not since 2003, when they went 93-69 in Lou Piniella’s final year at the helm, have they come as close by both routes to the postseason; that year, they finished three games behind the A’s in the division race and two behind the Red Sox in the AL Wild Card. And not since that 2001 team set a modern record with 116 wins have they qualified for the playoffs. Read the rest of this entry »

The Brewers clinched the NL Central title on Sunday, becoming the third team to wrap up their division after the Rays and White Sox. The occasion was certainly cause for celebration, but one key player took things too far. Devin Williams, the team’s top setup man, fractured his right hand — his pitching hand, that is — punching a wall and will require surgery that could keep him out through at least the National League Championship Series and perhaps longer.

Renowned for his Airbender changeup, one of the game’s most effective and unhittable pitches, Williams won NL Rookie of the Year honors and Trevor Hoffman National League Reliever of the Year honors in 2020 while posting a 0.33 ERA and 0.86 FIP in 27 innings. A bout of right shoulder soreness, later diagnosed as a rotator cuff strain, kept him off the Brewers’ roster during last year’s Wild Card Series, during which the team was swept in two games by the Dodgers.

Though he did not require surgery, Williams was brought along slowly in the spring, and scuffled early in the season. He missed 10 days in July due to right elbow discomfort and was limited to five appearances in September due to a right calf injury but still posted a 2.50 ERA and 2.81 FIP in 54 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

With five days remaining in the 2021 regular season, it’s abundantly clear that there won’t be much clarity offered in the National League Most Valuable Player race. Yes, Bryce Harper’s Phillies still have a mathematical shot at a postseason spot per our Playoff Odds, unlike Fernando Tatis Jr.’s Padres and Juan Soto’s Nationals, but not everybody is of the belief that an MVP needs to hail from a postseason-bound team or even a contender.

From a practical standpoint, it’s usually the case that an MVP does hail from such a team; in the Wild Card era (1995 onward), 42 of 52 (80.8%) have done so. The tendency shows an upward trend, the degree of which depends upon where one sets the cutoff. For example, three out of 18 MVPs from 1995-2003 missed the postseason, and likewise three of 18 from 2004-12, but four of 16 from 2013 onward; it’s just as accurate to say that from 1995-2004, four of 20 missed the playoffs, dipping to two of 20 from 2005-14 and then four of 12 since. Either way, all-time greats Larry Walker (1997), Barry Bonds (2001 and ’04), Albert Pujols (2008), Alex Rodriguez (2003) and Mike Trout (2016 and ’19) account for the vast majority of those exceptions, with Ryan Howard (2006), Harper (2015), and Giancarlo Stanton (2017) rounding out the group. That Rodriguez, Stanton, and Trout have doubled the all-time total of MVPs who have won while hailing from sub-.500 teams — a list that previously included only Ernie Banks (1958 and ’59), Andre Dawson (1987), and Cal Ripken Jr. (1991) — is perhaps the more notable trend, with Shohei Ohtani likely to increase that count this year. Effectively, that’s a green light for Soto’s late entry into the race, and also worth pointing out with regards to Tatis, as the Padres slipped to 78-79 with Tuesday night’s loss to the Dodgers.

From a practical standpoint, it’s also true that the notion of value is extensively tied to the things that can be measured via Wins Above Replacement. As old friend Eno Sarris noted at The Athletic (in an article on the value of Ohtani’s roster spot that’s well worth a read), in the past 14 years, only two MVP winners were not in their league’s top three by FanGraphs’ WAR, namely Jimmy Rollins in 2007, and Justin Verlander in ’11. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the fourth installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.

We’re down to the final six days of the 2021 regular season, and while the National League picture has cleared up somewhat thanks in part to the Cardinals’ 16-game winning streak — the Padres and Mets have finally been put out of their misery — the America League Wild Card picture is still rather dizzying, as Dan Szymborski can attest. The good news is that we’ve still got a substantial chance at bonus baseball, which is what this series is all about. Let’s dive in.

NL West and NL East

While the Brewers have officially clinched the NL Central, the Senior Circuit’s other two divisions remain in play. In the NL West, the Dodgers (100-56) suffered a stunning loss to the Diamondbacks on Saturday while the Giants (102-54) beat the Rockies, restoring San Francisco’s division lead to two games. In this unbelievable race, San Francisco has gone 37-15 since the start of August, allowing Los Angeles (37-13) to gain just one game in the standings.

Even with Brandon Belt now out due to a broken thumb, the Playoff Odds give the Giants an 83.4% chance of bringing this one home, because they not only have the lead but the easier schedule the rest of the way, as they finish by playing host to the Diamondbacks and Padres while the Dodgers host the Padres and Brewers. If the Dodgers do make up the ground and tie but don’t overtake the Giants, the tiebreaker game — which has a 13.9% chance of being necessary according to our Playoff Odds Tiebreaker page — would be played in San Francisco on the basis of their 10-9 season series edge. The winner of that game would be crowned division champion and get the NL’s top seed, while the loser would host the Wild Card Game, with whoever wins that turning around to play the NL West champion in the Division Series. Read the rest of this entry »

With a doubleheader win on Friday, a bizarre 3-2-5-4-2-8-6 double play and a ninth-inning comeback on Saturday, and more late-inning heroics on Sunday, the Cardinals ran their winning streak to a franchise-record 16 games. The streak is the longest in the majors since Cleveland won 22 consecutive games in 2017, and the longest in the National League since the Giants won 16 in a row in 1951 as part of the comeback that culminated in Bobby Thomson’s pennant-winning homer, “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”

The Redbirds’ winning streak has turned a team that was 71-69 with just 5.0% Playoff Odds into one that’s on the verge of cinching the NL’s second Wild Card spot, suddenly giving the Cardinals a look of invincibility. “With 16 Straight Wins, the St. Louis Cardinals May Never Lose Again,” reads one headline. “Cardinals Look Unstoppable Right Now,” reads another.

For as unbeatable as the Cardinals appear right now, the history of late-season winning streaks tells us that while this run may certainly help the team secure a playoff berth, it doesn’t tell us anything about how they’ll fare in October. Look no further than that aforementioned Cleveland team for a harsh reminder of that lesson. From August 24 to September 15 of the 2017 season, the defending AL champions steamrolled opponents, piling up wins in close games and in blowouts until they’d set an American League record. The team finished with 102 wins, the highest total by the franchise since 1954, and hopes were high that they could secure the title that they’d come so close to winning just the year before. Yet when the postseason rolled around, Cleveland was unceremoniously bounced, losing a tight five-game series to the Yankees.

The story was similar for the team whose AL record they broke. The 2002 A’s won 20 straight games from August 13 to September 6 and finished with 103 wins, the franchise’s highest total since 1988. Yet they too were defeated in a five-game Division Series, losing to the Twins.

In fact, no team that’s run off a late-season streak — starting in August or September — of more than 11 wins has even reached the World Series during the division play era (1969 onward):

Read the rest of this entry »

2:04

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat! Today I’ve got a piece on LaMonte Wade Jr.s out-of-nowhere season and timely hitting for the Giants (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/lamonte-wade-jr-has-been-a-difference-…). Earlier this week, I had pieces on Jon Lester’s hot streak (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jon-lesters-well-timed-hot-streak/) and the Orioles’ impact on the AL Wild Card race (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-playoff-race-thats-for-the-birds-the-o…)

2:04	Jay Jaffe: It’s been quite a week, and yes, you’re part of the discussion now. I’m actually scheduled to do a piece on the NL MVP race for Monday.

2:06	Jay Jaffe: I honestly don’t know how I feel about it now except to say that at first glance it looks like a real tossup between Harper/Tatis/Soto, none of them on teams that are going to make the playoffs. Beyond that, we’ll see what sways me.

2:09

Jay Jaffe: Probably Max Scherzer, because damn, he’s still one of the best in the game, a guy who appears as though he can be the top starter on a championship team right now. I’m of course interested to see how the Dodgers deal with Clayton Kershaw, and would think that the Mets are going to work hard to retain Marcus Stroman.

Read the rest of this entry »

LaMonte Wade Jr. was hardly a household name coming into this season, just another roster hopeful buried on the Giants’ depth charts. But like several other pickups by the Giants in recent years — players coming off lousy seasons elsewhere, or ones who had never gotten a full shot in their previous organizations — he’s become an essential contributor this season. Despite barely playing in the majors before the end of May, he’s tied for fourth on the team in home runs, and has shown a penchant for collecting timely late-inning hits.

Wade’s most recent big hit came on Tuesday night. Facing the possibility of dropping into a tie with the Dodgers atop the National League West, the Giants clawed their way back from an early 4-1 deficit against the Padres before Wade drove in the go-ahead run in the ninth inning with a bloop single off ex-Giant Mark Melancon:

That was the seventh time since June that a Wade hit put the Giants in the lead in the eighth inning or later, which is tied with five other players for the major league lead. All of them — namely Michael Conforto, Aaron Judge, Austin Meadows, Jorge Polanco, and Kyle Seager — have at least 96 more plate appearances than he does, and all of those hits helped the Giants win those games. Here’s the supercut:

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The Cardinals’ 10-game winning streak has given them control of the race for the second NL Wild Card spot, as they’ve built a four-game lead over the Reds, reduced their magic number to clinch a spot to eight, and threatened to cut my Team Entropy workload way down. Monday’s victory over the Brewers, their ninth win in that streak, marked the 200th career win for Jon Lester, thereby increasing the count of active hurlers who have achieved that milestone from two to three, as the 37-year-old southpaw — who was acquired from the Nationals at the July 30 deadline — joined Justin Verlander (226) and Zack Greinke (219).

Before you ask: no, I don’t think this does much for Lester’s Hall of Fame case, not with a 39.5 JAWS, which ranks 156th among starting pitchers, below the likes of Cliff Lee, Jamie Moyer, Carlos Zambrano, Brad Radke, Bartolo Colon and current teammate Adam Wainwright — and more than 20 points behind Verlander, Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw, all of whom are around the Hall of Fame standard (61.7). Two-hundred wins, five All-Star appearances, three World Series rings, and three top-five Cy Young award finishes is a nice set of credentials, but let’s not go overboard.

Anyway, Lester pitched badly with the Nationals, and he wasn’t so hot over his final two-plus seasons with the Cubs, either, as his diminished strikeout rate caught up with him. His tenure with the Cardinals — who were just 51-51 with 2.1% Playoff Odds when they traded outfielder Lane Thomas to the Nationals in exchange for him — began in similarly dismal fashion. Yet over his last six turns, he’s delivered a 2.27 ERA in 35.2 innings, allowing no more than two earned runs in any of those outings, which have come against the Tigers, Reds (twice), Brewers (twice), and Mets. Then again, a peek at Lester’s FIP during that six-start stretch (5.68) — driven by a gaudy 2.02 homers per nine — suggests that not all that much has changed for him, so the question is, what’s underlying those better results? Read the rest of this entry »

This is the third installment of this year’s Team Entropy series, my recurring look not only at the races for the remaining playoff spots but the potential for end-of-season chaos in the form of down-to-the-wire suspense and even tiebreakers. Ideally, we want more ties than the men’s department at Macy’s. If you’re new to this, please read the introduction here.

We’re now inside of two weeks remaining in the 2021 season, and in both leagues, the playoff herds have thinned. With the Mets and Mariners both slipping in the Wild Card standings of their respective leagues, it appears that Major League Baseball’s heretofore unpublished five-way tiebreaker protocol will remain under wraps for another year, and time is running out for some other teams. Even so, there’s still a lot in play.

NL West and NL East

For starters, the race for the NL West flag is very much alive. The Giants won nine in a row from September 5-14, turning what had briefly been a tie with the Dodgers — which they broke with a season series-clinching win to kick off the streak — into a 2 1/2-game advantage. But after beating the Padres twice to start their four-game set at Oracle Park, the Giants lost the last two game of the series, and took “only” two of three agains the Braves this past weekend. Meanwhile the Dodgers split four games with the Cardinals in St. Louis, swept six games from the Padres and the Diamondbacks at home, and took two out of three from the Reds in Cincinnati, trimming the gap to a single game.

Both teams were idle on Monday, and now the defending champions visit Colorado and Arizona for three-game sets this week before returning home to close out the regular season with three-gamers against the Padres and Brewers. The Giants visit the Padres and then the Rockies for three apiece, then close by hosting the Diamondback and Padres. The Playoff Odds have ever so slightly tilted back to the Dodgers, 50.5% to 49.5%, but a stiff breeze could undo that pretty quickly.

The potential end-of-season scenario for these two teams hasn’t changed. If they’re tied after 162 games — the odds of which are currently at 16.1% — the Giants will host the tiebreaker, and the winner will be crowned division champion and get the NL’s top seed, while the loser will host the Wild Card Game; whoever wins that will turn around and play the NL West champion in the Division Series.

Meanwhile, with the Braves losing five out of six to the Marlins, Rockies, and Giants from September 11-18, the gap in the NL East shrank to a single game. It’s back up to three now, but I still get to run the table:

The Phillies, who just took two of three from both the Cubs and Mets, have the NL’s second-easiest remaining schedule the rest of the way, with a weighted opponents’ winning percentage of .448. They’re in the midst of hosting the Orioles — who have done their part to play the spoiler in the AL East, and beat the Phils at Camden Yards on Monday — and Pirates, the latter for four games instead of three, then finish with three apiece in Atlanta (where they can clinch the season series with a single win) and Miami. The Braves (.512 oppo win percentage) are in the midst of visiting the Diamondbacks for four and then the Padres for three before returning home to host the Phillies and Mets. I’m humoring the Mets here, because with odds of just 0.4% — all for the division, as they’ve slipped below the visibility threshold in the Wild Card race — New York is barely relevant. They do close against Atlanta; before that, the visit Boston for two and Milwaukee for three, then host Miami for four.

If the Phillies and Braves do end up tied (8.8% odds), the winner of the season series would play host to a Game 163 tiebreaker while the loser would, in all likelihood, go home. If somehow the two teams do finish 162 games with the same record as the second Wild Card team, the division-deciding tiebreaker wouldn’t be considered as breaking that tie. Instead, they’d become part of whatever Wild Card tie-breaking process is on the table. For example, if the Braves, Phillies, and Cardinals all finish at 86-76… You know what? I’m getting ahead of myself.

NL Wild Card No. 2

Let’s backtrack a bit. By beating up on the Padres and Reds, the Dodgers did their share to clear up the Wild Card picture, which gained additional clarity as the Cardinals swept six games from the Mets and Padres, running their winning streak to eight straight. The Cardinals don’t have the easiest road ahead, in that six of their remaining 13 games (plus the one they won on Monday night, stretching their winning streak to nine) are against the Brewers, first as part of a four-game series in Milwaukee. They follow that with three against the Cubs in Chicago, then return home to host the Brewers and Cubs for three apiece. Their Playoff Odds, which were 7.9% as of September 11, and 36.0% on September 16, have skyrocketed to 79.6%.

By losing series to the Cardinals, Pirates, and Dodgers, the Red have dropped their odds from 52.9% to 14.4%, and losing Jesse Winker after a premature one-game return from his intercostal strain didn’t help (never believe a team when they say they think a player can return from an intercostal strain in 10 days). They do have the easiest remaining schedule, with a .440 weighted opponents’ winning percentage; that’s thanks to a pair of three-game series against the Pirates — first at home, beginning with Monday night’s win, then closing on the road — bookending a four-game series hosting the Nationals and then visiting the South Side for two against the White Sox.

The Padres are falling apart at the seams. Their odds were still at 44.0% on September 9, but they’ve gone 2-8 since then, sandwiching sweeps by the Dodgers and Cardinals around a split of a four-game series with the Giants. Saturday night’s dugout confrontation between Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. not only didn’t look good but hinted at bigger troubles behind the scenes.

As noted previously, the Padres have a brutal schedule the rest of the way, with six games against the Giants (three at home this week, then three in San Francisco on the final weekend) bookending a three-game series hosting the Braves and a three-game trip to visit the Dodgers. Oh, and get this, that series against the Braves also includes the conclusion of a suspended game that began on July 21, where the Braves trail 5-4 in the bottom of the fifth inning of a seven-inning game; in other words, for a brief time, they’ll be the home team at Petco Park.

Tiebreaker-wise, if two of these teams wind up with the same records atop this group after 162 games (11.9% odds), the host for the game will be determined by the better head-to-head record, and if not that then the better intradivision record; here the Reds (41-30, .577) and Phillies (40-30, .571) have big advantages over the Cardinals (32-31, .508) and Padres (32-35, .478, yikes). If that doesn’t unknot the tie, then intraleague records are next, positioning the Cardinals (69-60, .535) ahead of the Phillies (70-62, .530), and Padres (62-67, .481). If somehow that didn’t break the tie, they’d drill down to records in the last half of intraleague games, and then the last half plus one, plus two, and so on. I’m not digging through schedules for those hypotheticals just yet.

If three teams wind up tied for a single Wild Card spot, it gets complicated. This time around, I’ll use a hypothetical example involving the Cardinals, Reds, and Phillies. The Reds won their season series against both of the other teams (10-9 over Cardinals, 4-2 over Phillies), so they’re first in the pecking order, then the Phillies are second by dint of their 4-3 edge over the Cardinals. The teams then draft spots within the following scenario: Club A hosts Club B, with the winner hosting Club C. In other words, the team picking first can either choose a shot at two home games, or limit themselves to one road game. The team with the short straw in the three-way tiebreaker is actually Club B, which in a best-case scenario has to win not one but two road games just to get into the playoffs.

If four teams wind up tied for one spot, they’re ranked by their combined head-to-head records, which in this case shake out as the Padres (11-8, .579), Phillies (10-9, .526), Reds (15-17, .469), and Cardinals (15-17, .469), with the last two teams separated by Cincinnati’s aforementioned 10-9 season series advantage. The four teams would then draft spots in the following scenario: Club A hosts Club B and Club C hosts Club D, with the A/B winner hosting the C/D winner.

Back to the aforementioned scenario involving the Braves, Phillies, and Cardinals, with the first two teams tied for the NL East lead and all three tied for the second Wild Card spot. Once the Game 163 tiebreaker determines the NL East champion, the losing team would still be considered tied for the Wild Card spot. The Cardinals lost season series to both the Braves (1-6) and Phillies (3-4) so regardless of the division tiebreaker’s outcome, they would be the road team for that play-in, the winning of which would merely send them into the Wild Card game as the road team. Note that if the Padres are the third team instead of the Cardinals, they lost the season series to the Phillies (2-4) but haven’t yet finished their series against the Braves, so there’s a still chance they could be the home team if that play-in transpired.

AL Wild Cards

With five straight wins over the Mariners and Orioles, the Red Sox have moved to the head of the class, and they have a relatively thin schedule the rest of the way (.486 oppo win percentage) in which their three games against the Yankees this coming weekend are the only ones against a team above .500; first they host the Mets for two, then spend their final week on the road with three apiece against the Orioles and Nationals. Their odds at claiming a spot are now 89.8%.

The Blue Jays lost the first of three to the Rays in Tampa Bay on Monday night but are still a major league best 15-4 this month. They’ve got two more there, and four in Minnesota before finishing by hosting the Yankees and Orioles for three apiece. Their odds of winning a Wild Card spot are a solid 62.6%. The Yankees, who are tied with the Orioles for the league’s worst record since August 27 (8-15), have been busy dropping key series to the Mets and Cleveland, to say nothing of their troubles with the Birds. They did beat the Rangers in the first game of their three-game series on Monday, after which they face a critical six-game road trip to Toronto and Boston before returning home to host Tampa Bay. Among the remaining AL Wild Card contenders, their weighted opponents’ winning percentage of .539 is now the highest, and their odds (40.1%) are less than half of what they were at their peak (85.7% on September 4).

In danger of fading from the picture are the two AL West contenders. Despite a five-game winning streak over the Royals and Angels, the A’s are just 9-9 this month, and their odds have fallen to 5.5%. Losing to the Mariners at home on Monday night, in the first game of a four-game set, didn’t help, particularly as they now have to run the table just to take the season series. They’ve got a tough schedule the rest of the way (.537 oppo win percentage) because in addition to Seattle, they’ve got six games left against the Astros; they close the season in Houston. They’re still better off than the Mariners, whose odds are down to 1.6%, though at least Seattle gets six games against the Angels instead of six with the Astros.

Tie-wise, the three AL East contenders have odd numbers of head-to-head games, so determining the host of a two-team play-in is straightforward. As for three-way ties, assuming it’s the beasts from the east, the order would shake out with the Red Sox getting to pick first because they own the season series advantage over the other two teams, with the Blue Jays picking second and the Yankees third. If somehow the A’s were to replace the Yankees in such a scrum, I think — but am not 100% sure based on the wording of the tiebreaker protocol (“If Club 1 has a better record against Clubs 2 and 3, and Club 2 has a better record against Club 3, then Club 1 chooses its designation, followed by Club 2”) — that the order would be Red Sox, Blue Jays, and A’s because while Boston and Oakland split their six games, the former has the better intradivision record (40-30 versus 33-31). Again the teams draft into the familiar scenario: Club A hosts Club B, with the winner hosting Club C.

A four-team scenario involving all but the Mariners would move to a ranking by combined head-to-head records. The exact order is still up in the air thanks to the Yankees having three games apiece against their AL East rivals, but if we’re doing this today it would go Blue Jays (24-18, .571, three to play), Red Sox (23-18, .561, three to play), Yankees (16-23, .410, six to play), A’s (8-12, .400). Want to swap the Mariners for the A’s? Fine, sure, whatever: Red Sox (24-18, .571, 3 to play), Blue Jays (21-20, .512, three to play), Mariners (9-11, .450), Yankees (17-22, .436, six to play). Again, the four teams draft spots, and Club A hosts Club B and Club C hosts Club D, with the A/B winner hosting the C/D winner atop the coconut tree (I might need to review my notes).

Our tiebreaker page tells us that the two-way AL tie has the best odds of any such tie scenario, at 17.1%, with a three-way tie for the second spot at 2.1%, a three-way tie for the top spot at 2.3%, and a four-way tie at 0.1%. If that doesn’t give you something to root for, then contributor Jake Mailhot has a handy guide to potential spoilers:

If your team is out of the playoff picture but want to know if they'll have opportunities to affect the postseason races, here's a handy table for reference.

? Spoiler Alert: ARI, BAL, CHC, LAA, MIA, PIT
???? Team Irrelevant: CLE, KCR, MIN, TEX pic.twitter.com/MlHm1vxJ64

— Jake Mailhot (@jakemailhot) September 20, 2021

Now, get rooting!

The Orioles are a very bad baseball team. In fact, by the available evidence, they’re the majors’ worst, owners of the lowest winning percentage by a narrow margin and the lowest run differential by a country mile. Yet when the book is finally closed on the 2021 season, they will have left a sizable footprint on the American League playoff picture. For as dreadful as they’ve been, they’ve played quite the spoilers — and could continue to do so.

The O’s have already lost more than 100 games for the third time in the past four seasons; obviously, they couldn’t pull that off during last year’s pandemic-shortened campaign, though had it been played to completion, they might have given the century mark a run for its money, as their their record prorated to 68-94. At 47-102 (.315) this year, they’re one game worse than the Diamondbacks (48-101, .322), and on pace to lose 111 games, second only to their 2018 team’s 115 losses in terms of the franchise’s run in Baltimore. Because they’ve surrendered a ghastly 6.00 runs per game, they’ve been outscored by 276 runs, and could become the fifth team of the post-1960 expansion era to be outscored by at least 300 runs.

The Orioles have been even worse within their division (18-52, .257) than outside it (29-50, .367), but while they lost 18 out of 19 games to the Rays — becoming the third team of the division play era to do that, after the 2019 Tigers (1-18 versus Cleveland) and Mariners (1-18 versus the Astros) — they went 8-11 versus the Yankees. Without that difference, the AL East race would be a four-team pileup:

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