In the last week of the regular season, 15 teams are still showing signs of life when it comes to securing a playoff spot. Sounds impressive — half the majors are still in contention — and it’s on par with last year and better than 2022. Still, it boils down to just three teams remaining on the board, and only one of the six division leaders has more than a 1% chance of changing hands. As mentioned, since the passage of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and its four-round playoff system, options for scheduling chaos have been replaced by the excitement of math. On-field tiebreakers are a thing of the past, as head-to-head records are usually enough to settle things.
On Friday, I looked at the race for the first-round byes, which go to the teams with the two best finishes in each league, so today I’ll focus on what’s left of the wild card races. Fortunately, there’s still enough at stake for both leagues to provide some level of excitement.
American League
Saturday’s game between the Tigers and Orioles certainly helped keep the AL Wild Card race exciting. The Tigers, who came into the game with the AL’s best record since early July (42-28), led the struggling Orioles (33-37 during the same period) 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning. Closer Jason Foley allowed the first four Orioles to get on base on two singles, a walk and a two-run double by Gunnar Henderson. With the decisive run 90 feet away, manager AJ Hinch brought in reliever Beau Brieske, who wriggled out of the jam and sent the game into the 10th inning, where Riley Greene caught the Manfred man and also scored. Brieske also shut out the Orioles in the bottom of the inning, securing the win.
After another loss to the Tigers on Sunday – this time by Parker Meadows’ steal of a potential Colton Cowser home run in the fifth inning – the Orioles (86-70) are now six games behind the Yankees (92-64) in the AL East race, although they still hold a four-game lead over the first wild card spot. They’re not quite out of the race for the division yet, as they face the Yankees in three games in the Bronx starting Tuesday, but they need a sweep as New York’s magic number has dropped to one. Taking all three games away from the Yankees would give the Orioles the tiebreaker between the two teams due to their 7-6 advantage in the season series. For the tiebreaker to matter, however, the Orioles would have to finish the season in Minnesota with a sweep of the Twins (81-75) and the Yankees would have to lose all three 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 only a 0.1% chance of winning the division and thus a 99.8% chance of securing a Wild Card spot. The good news for the O’s is that as the likely top-seeded Wild Card team, they would have home-court advantage in the best-of-three opening round.
Besides Baltimore, the other two spots are still up for grabs, with three AL Central teams in the middle, all with just one path to the postseason after the Guardians (90-66) clinched the AL Central on Saturday. While the Royals (82-74) secured their first winning season since 2015, they also managed to lose seven games in a row to the Pirates, Tigers and Giants (oh my!) — and that’s their second seven-game losing streak since late August. (How’s that for timing?) Worse, they’ve scored just four runs total in their last 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 have the tiebreaker thanks to their 7-6 lead in the season series. Both teams are one game ahead of Minnesota (81-75), but the Twins have that tiebreaker thanks to their 7-6 lead over the Royals. The Twins also have the tiebreaker over the Tigers by… you guessed it, a 7-6 lead.
Kansas City finishes the regular season on the road with three games against the Nationals (69-87) and three against the struggling Braves (85-71). Our playoff odds give the Royals a 68.7% chance of advancing.
The Tigers have returned to contention with a bang despite having to cobble together a rotation featuring a likely Cy Young winner (Tarik Skubal), a shaky former No. 1 pick (Casey Mize), a replacement-level rookie (Keider Montero) and a slew of openers. Saturday’s win boosted Detroit’s playoff chances from 26.9% to 38.2%, and Sunday’s win, coupled with the Royals and Twins’ blowout moves, boosted them further to 70.6%, the highest of the three Central contenders. The Tigers have the lowest strength rating of any remaining contender, with a weighted opponent win percentage of .447 as they finish their schedule at home against the Rays (78-78) and the historically hopeless White Sox (36-120).
The Twins got Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa back after extended absences last weekend, but they have lost seven of 10 games since the former returned to the lineup on Friday, Sept. 13, and are just 11-22 since Aug. 18. Saturday’s rainout in Boston gave them some brief relief after three straight extra-inning games — including two walk-off losses to the Guardians — and while they have another day off after Sunday’s doubleheader, they’ll be licking their wounds after losing both games by scores of 8-1 and 9-3. Their chances of a wild card berth have dropped to 53.5%; the good news is that they play the rest of the way at home against the Marlins (57-98, but 12-21 since the same date on Aug. 18) and the Orioles.
And despite blowing a 10-game division lead in record time earlier this summer, the Mariners (80-76) aren’t out of the race quite yet, as they’re 16-12 under new coach Dan Wilson. Their chances are pretty slim at 5.6%, and that doesn’t even include their 1% chance of reclaiming the AL West from the Astros (85-71), who they play three games against in Houston starting Monday. The Mariners, who are five games back in the division with six games remaining, have the tiebreaker against the Astros thanks to their 6-4 series lead. Did I say it would be easy? No. If the Mariners advance there, they’ll also have to worry about the A’s (67-89) next weekend in Seattle, who have the better second-half record of the two teams (30-28 vs. 28-30).
In case you’re wondering how this all plays out in terms of seeding, if the playoffs started today, the Orioles (4) would play the Royals (5) for the right to play the Yankees (1), while the Astros (3) would play the Tigers (6) for the chance to play the Guardians (2).
Bundesliga
Thanks to a four-game winning streak that includes this weekend’s sweep of the White Sox and a 40-17 major league record since the All-Star break, the Padres (90-66) have the magic number one to secure a playoff spot. They are three games ahead of the Mets and Diamondbacks (both 87-69) in the wild card race and are just three games behind the Dodgers (93-63) in the NL West standings. The Padres have already won the tiebreaker against the Dodgers – they lead the season series 7-3 so far – and they have a golden opportunity to narrow the gap in the division with three games in Los Angeles that begin Tuesday. From there, they travel to Arizona to face the Diamondbacks (87-69), with whom they have split 10 games so far this season – so their tiebreaker is still up for grabs. San Diego’s chances of winning the NL West are still pretty slim at 8.7%, but this is the final game closest to a division race and a first-round bye is almost certain to be on the line. Even if the Padres don’t win the West, they’ll almost certainly clinch a wild card spot.
As for the Dodgers, despite leaving the door ajar, they have the best record in the NL entering this week. After beating 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 confuse even the strongest pitchers, let alone one held together only by the already chewed gum of a pack of 1981 Topps cards.
The Mets continue to be in top form in September, with a 15-5 record, scoring 5.05 runs per game and allowing 2.90 runs per game, meaning they’re not messing around. They’ve had enough of their gum-chewing, but we’ll soon see if they can also be strong on trips to the Braves (85-71) and Brewers (89-71), the latter of which clinched the NL Central last Wednesday. In terms of tiebreakers, 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 so far, so that tiebreaker is on the line.
The Mets’ playoff chances (76.3%) are lower than the Diamondbacks’ (82.7%), although the D-backs blew an 8-0 lead against the Brewers in Milwaukee on Sunday, avoiding a four-game sweep. Arizona hosts the Giants (77-79) for three games starting Monday, followed by three home games against the Padres to close the season. The Diamondbacks lost every tiebreaker here except the game against the Padres, having lost their season series to the Dodgers (6-7), Mets (3-4) and Braves (2-5).
Despite winning four of their last five games, the Braves are just 32-29 since the All-Star break, worse than every NL team except the Phillies (30-30). Atlanta trails both the Diamondbacks and Mets by two games and is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017. The Braves are limping toward the finish line after losing not only Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider for the season, but also Austin Riley to a broken hamstring (he will undergo a CT scan on Monday to see if his cast can be removed, but he probably wouldn’t play until the Wild Card Series) and Reynaldo López to a recurrence of shoulder inflammation. Ozzie Albies returned from a broken wrist on Friday and hit his first home run since July 6 in Sunday’s win over the Marlins.
The Braves play the rest of the season at home against the Mets and Royals, two teams that also have plenty of play to do. Atlanta’s chances are down to 40.6%, and worse, they only get one more regular-season start from Chris Sale. He could have made two starts each on Tuesday and Sunday with four days of rest, but instead he’ll face the Mets on Wednesday because he’s pretty exhausted. The 35-year-old left-hander — the likely NL Cy Young winner — has already thrown more innings this year (177 2/3) than in any season since 2017, and his average velocity on four-seam fastballs has not only dropped 1.7 mph from August (95.4) to September (93.7), but it’s down to 92.7 mph in his last start on Thursday.
If the playoffs began today, the Padres (4) would face the Mets (5) in a rematch of San Diego’s surprise 2022 Wild Card victory. The winner would play the Dodgers (1). The Brewers (3), meanwhile, would face the Diamondbacks (6), and the winner would face the Phillies (2). It’s not Team Entropy, but there could still be some turbulence over the next seven days.
