Setting Up a Wild (Card) Final Week

As we head into the final week of the regular season, 15 teams still show signs of life when it comes to claiming a playoff berth. On the one hand, that sounds impressive — half the majors still contending — and it’s on par with last year and better than 2022. Nonetheless, it still boils down to just three teams falling by the wayside, and just one of the six division leads having a greater than 1% chance of changing hands. As noted previously, since the adoption of the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement and its four-round playoff system, the options for scheduling chaos have been replaced by the excitement of math. On-field tiebreakers are a thing of the past, with head-to-head records usually all that are required to sort things out.

On Friday I checked in on the race to secure first-round byes, which go to the teams with the top two records in each league, so today I’ll shift focus to what’s left of the Wild Card races. Thankfully, there’s still enough at stake for both leagues to offering some amount of intrigue.

American League

Saturday’s contest between the Tigers and Orioles certainly played its part in keeping the AL Wild Card race exciting. The Tigers, who came in owning the AL’s best record since the start of July (42-28), led the slumping Orioles (33-37 within that same span) 4-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth. Closer Jason Foley allowed the first four Orioles to reach base via a pair of singles, a walk, and a two-run double by Gunnar Henderson. With the winning run 90 feet away, manager A.J. Hinch brought in reliever Beau Brieske, who wriggled out of the jam and sent the game into the 10th, where Riley Greene drove in the Manfred man and came around to score as well. Brieske shut down the Orioles in the bottom of the frame as well to preserve the win.

With another loss to the Tigers on Sunday — this one featuring Parker Meadows’ fifth-inning robbery of a potential Colton Cowser home run — the Orioles (86-70) are now six games behind the Yankees (92-64) in the AL East race, though they still own a four-game lead for the top Wild Card spot. They’re not completely out of the division race yet, as they’ll face the Yankees for three games in the Bronx starting Tuesday, but they need a sweep, since New York’s magic number is down to one. Taking all three from the Yankees would give the Orioles the tiebreaker between the two teams on the basis of a 7-6 season-series advantage. Even so, for the tiebreaker to matter, the Orioles would need to close the season in Minnesota by sweeping the Twins (81-75) and the Yankees to lose all three of their games over the weekend to the Pirates (73-83). The Orioles are 99.9% certain to make the playoffs according to our odds, but have just a 0.1% chance of winning the division and thus a 99.8% chance of securing a Wild Card berth. The good news for the O’s is that, as the likely top-seeded Wild Card team, they would have home-field advantage in the best-of-three opening round.

Beyond Baltimore, the other two spots are really up for grabs, with three AL Central teams right in the middle of it, all with just one route to the postseason after the Guardians (90-66) clinched the AL Central on Saturday. While the Royals (82-74) have secured their first winning season since 2015, they’ve also managed to lose seven straight games to the Pirates, Tigers, and Giants (oh my!) — and that’s their second seven-game losing streak since late August. (How’s this for timing?) Worse, they’ve scored a total of just four runs over their past five games, with the last one coming in the ninth inning of Friday night’s 2-1 loss to the Giants. Now that’s a lost weekend!

The Royals are now tied with the Tigers (82-74) for the second Wild Card spot, and they own the tiebreaker by dint of their 7-6 season-series advantage. Both teams are one game ahead of Minnesota (81-75), but the Twins own that particular tiebreaker over the Royals based on their 7-6 advantage. The Twins also own the tiebreaker over the Tigers by… you guessed it, a 7-6 advantage.

Kansas City closes out the regular season on the road, with three games against the Nationals (69-87) and three against the banged-up Braves (85-71). Our playoff odds give the Royals a 68.7% chance of making it through.

The Tigers have roared back into the race despite having to duct tape a rotation together out of a likely Cy Young winner (Tarik Skubal), a wobbly former no. 1 pick (Casey Mize), a replacement-level rookie (Keider Montero), and a bunch of openers. Saturday’s win boosted Detroit’s playoff odds from 26.9% to 38.2%, and then Sunday’s win coupled with the fall-on-your-face actions by the Royals and Twins further boosted them to 70.6%, the highest of the three Central contenders. The Tigers have the lowest strength-of-schedule rating of any remaining contender, with a weighted opponents’ winning percentage of .447, as they finish out their schedule at home against the Rays (78-78) and the historically futile White Sox (36-120).

The Twins got Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa back from extended absences last weekend, but they’ve lost seven out of 10 since the former’s return to the lineup on Friday, September 13, and are just 11-22 since August 18. Saturday’s rainout in Boston briefly afforded them some relief after three straight extra-innings games — including two walk-off losses the Guardians — and they do have another day off following Sunday’s doubleheader, but they’ll be licking their wounds after dropping both games, 8-1 and 9-3. Their odds of a Wild Card berth are down to 53.5%; the good news is that they’re at home the rest of the way against the Marlins (57-98, but 12-21 since that same August 18 date) and the Orioles.

Finally, despite blowing a 10-game division lead in record time earlier this summer, the Mariners (80-76) aren’t quite out of the picture yet due to their 16-12 record under new manager Dan Wilson. At 5.6%, their odds are pretty slim, and that’s not even counting their 1% chance of snatching the AL West back from the Astros (85-71), whom they face for three games in Houston starting on Monday. The Mariners, who are five games back in the division with six to play, hold the tiebreaker with the Astros courtesy of their 6-4 season-series advantage. Did I say this was going to be easy? I did not. If the Mariners do make headway there, they’ll also have to take care of business against the A’s (67-89) — who have the better second-half record of the two teams (30-28 vs. 28-30) — in Seattle next weekend.

In case you’re wondering how this all shakes out, seeding-wise: If the playoffs were to begin today, the Orioles (4) would face the Royals (5) for the right to play the Yankees (1), while the Astros (3) would face the Tigers (6) for the chance to play the Guardians (2).

National League

Thanks to a four-game winning streak that included this weekend’s sweep of the White Sox, as well as a major league-best 40-17 record since the All-Star break, the Padres (90-66) have a magic number of one in order to clinch a playoff berth. They own a three-game lead over the Mets and Diamondbacks (both 87-69) in the Wild Card race, and they’re only three games behind the Dodgers (93-63) in the NL West standings. The Padres have already clinched the tiebreaker over the Dodgers — they lead the season series 7-3 so far — and they have a golden opportunity to close the gap in the division, with three games in Los Angeles starting on Tuesday. From there, they travel to Arizona to finish against the Diamondbacks (87-69), with whom they’ve split 10 games so far this season — which is to say that their tiebreaker is still up for grabs. San Diego’s odds of winning the NL West are still pretty long at 8.7%, but this is the closest thing to a division race remaining, and a first-round bye is almost certainly at stake. Even if the Padres fall short of winning the West, they’ll almost definitely claim a Wild Card spot.

As for the Dodgers, despite having left the door ajar, they do own the NL’s best record entering this week. After hosting the Padres, they travel to Coors Field to face the Rockies (60-96). The Dodgers are obviously the much better team, but that altitude can mess up even the strongest of pitching staffs, to say nothing of one that’s being held together by the already-chewed gum from a pack of 1981 Topps cards.

The Mets continue to sizzle in September, going 15-5 while scoring 5.05 runs per game and allowing 2.90 per game, which is to say that they’re not messing around. They’re done chewing that gum, but we’re about to see whether they can also kick ass while traveling to face the Braves (85-71) and Brewers (89-71), the latter of whom sewed up the NL Central last Wednesday. Tiebreaker-wise, the Mets have the upper hand against the Diamondbacks (4-3) and Padres (5-2) but not the Dodgers (2-4). They’ve split 10 games with the Braves thus far, so that tiebreaker is on the line.

The Mets’ playoff odds (76.3%) are lower than those of the Diamondbacks (82.7%), though the D-backs did manage to blow an 8-0 lead over the Brewers on Sunday in Milwaukee, preventing them from completing a four-game sweep. Arizona hosts the Giants (77-79) for three games beginning Monday, followed by three at home against the Padres to wrap up the season. The Diamondbacks are on the wrong end of every tiebreaker here save for the one to be decided against the Padres, as they lost their season series to the Dodgers (6-7), Mets (3-4), and Braves (2-5).

Even while winning four of their past five games, the Braves are just 32-29 since the All-Star break, worse than any other contending NL team besides the Phillies (30-30). Trailing both the Diamondbacks and Mets by two games, Atlanta is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017. The Braves are limping to the finish line, having not only lost Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider for the season, but also Austin Riley to a fractured hamate (he’ll have a CT scan on Monday to see if he can get his cast removed, but he likely wouldn’t play until the Wild Card series) and Reynaldo López to another bout of shoulder inflammation. They did get Ozzie Albies back from a broken wrist on Friday, and he hit his first homer since July 6 in Sunday’s win over the Marlins.

The Braves are at home the rest of the way, against the Mets and Royals, two teams that also have plenty to play for the rest of the way. Atlanta’s odds are down to 40.6%, and worse, they’ll get only one more regular season start out of Chris Sale. Where he could have taken two starts each with four days of rest on Tuesday and Sunday, instead he’ll go on Wednesday against the Mets, since he’s pretty gassed. The 35-year-old lefty — the likely NL Cy Young winner — has already thrown more innings this year (177 2/3) than he has in any season since 2017, and his average four-seam fastball velocity is not only down 1.7 mph from August (95.4) to September (93.7), it was down to 92.7 mph in his most recent start on Thursday.

Seeding-wise, if the playoffs started today, the Padres (4) would face the Mets (5) in a rematch of San Diego’s 2022 Wild Card upset, with the winner advancing to play the Dodgers (1). Meanwhile, the Brewers (3) would face the Diamondbacks (6) with the winner taking on the Phillies (2). It’s not Team Entropy, but things could still get very shaken up over the next seven days.