The playoffs kind of started last night. After Monday’s pause, something escalated, giving us six games with immediate, significant World Series implications.
It was fun!
The Orioles played spoiler against the Red Sox. The Yankees pushed past the Blue Jays. The Mariners got to the “and now they’re starting to believe!” stage of the run. The Dodgers did their job. The Giants held serve. And in Atlanta, Will Smith held off a phurious Philadelphia rally in the ninth to bring the NL East one game closer to its likely end.
It’s a frantic time, one that could well leave us with tiebreaker games on Monday, and potentially tiebreaker games on Tuesday as well, with Boston, Seattle, and Toronto all within one loss of one another. The iron is hot. Here’s what matters the rest of the week:
NL East
Wednesday-Thursday: Philadelphia @ Atlanta
Friday-Sunday: Philadelphia @ Miami; New York @ Atlanta
Atlanta’s close to wrapping this up. Their magic number’s at three, meaning they just need three more wins, or three more Philadelphia losses, or two of one and one of the other. That said, if they get through Sunday and they’re still within half a game of one another, the Rockies have to come to Georgia for a rain makeup on Monday that could then set up a Tuesday tiebreaker game for the division. In other words, the chaos factor is high enough to justify keeping eyes on this.
NL West
Wednesday-Thursday: Arizona @ San Francisco; San Diego @ Los Angeles
Friday-Sunday: San Diego @ San Francisco; Milwaukee @ Los Angeles
The Dodgers are playing their best baseball of the year, posting an outrageous 38-13 mark since August began.
The Giants are playing their own best baseball of the year, with a 38-15 mark over that same stretch.
Two games separate the teams, with the prospect of a single-elimination game against the haven’t-lost-in-weeks St. Louis Cardinals awaiting the loser.
AL Wild Card
The good stuff.
Wednesday: Boston @ Baltimore; New York @ Toronto; Oakland @ Seattle
Thursday: Boston @ Baltimore; New York @ Toronto
Friday-Sunday: Boston @ Washington; Tampa Bay @ New York; Baltimore @ Toronto; Oakland @Houston; Anaheim @ Seattle
Currently, the standings line up as follows for the American League’s two Wild Card spots:
- Yankees: 90-67, 2.0 games ahead
- Boston: 88-69, 0.0 games back
- Seattle: 88-70, 0.5 games back
- Toronto: 87-70, 1.0 game back
- Oakland: 85-73, 3.5 games back
Oakland could be eliminated tonight, but the earliest this could be clinched is Friday, and that’s unlikely. Even the Yankees can’t lock in their spot until tomorrow at the earliest. FanGraphs gives us a 20.9% chance the second Wild Card race ends in a two-way tie, with a 3.6% chance of a three-way tie for the first spot, a 5.4% chance of a three-way tie for the second spot, and a 0.5% chance of a four-way tie for the first spot, which I think happens if the following goes down:
- Yankees go 1-4, finish 91-71
- Red Sox go 3-2, finish 91-71
- Blue Jays go 4-1, finish 91-71
- Mariners go 3-1, finish 91-71
OR the same thing but everyone’s a game worse, OR the same thing but everyone’s a game better. If this happens…it’s messy (it’s messy even if a three-way tie happens), but mostly in the selection process. The four-way tie would just become a brief, single-elimination tournament, with Monday’s winners advancing to Tuesday’s Wild Card Game. If it’s a three-way tie, two days of tiebreakers have to be played, meaning either the NL Wild Card Game would be bumped up to Tuesday, the AL Wild Card Game would be bumped back to Wednesday and we’d get both at once, or Major League Baseball would do something else they may or may not have lined up in case this comes to pass. The bottom line is, if we get big-enough ties we could get teams choosing their tiebreaker opponents, something we’ll of course have to dig into later in the week if this is still on the table.
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If you’re interested in watching out-of-market games, all of these are night games the next three days, and you can access them all on MLB TV (provided you’re out of market of the game happening—if you’re new to trying to watch baseball, welcome to Major League Baseball forbidding you from doing it if you don’t have cable), which I think offers seven-day free trials.
What’s there to know about each team? Here are the sparknotes, starting with the main characters (the AL Wild Card hopefuls):
New York Yankees
Serial underachievers in recent years, the Yankees have plenty of talent, especially at the plate. Their rotation is suspect, but Gerrit Cole’s in the discussion as one of the handful of best pitchers alive, and their bullpen could be getting a bump with Jonathan Loáisiga reportedly coming off the IL today.
The most fun thing about this team? They’re capable of starting a lineup we call “the jumbo package.”
Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox were a bit of a sleeper before the season, but a popular one, which kind of negated that sleeper status? A lot of the core is there from the 2018 World Series team: Chris Sale is back from Tommy John surgery, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers are locking down the left side of the infield, Alex Cora is back as manager after a year-long suspension, J.D. Martinez is a constant presence in the middle of the order. Notably absent is Mookie Betts, but Alex Verdugo, part of the return in that trade, hasn’t been that much worse than Betts this season.
The most fun thing about this team? I have the softest of spots in my heart for Kyle Schwarber, an incredible teammate and the hardest-nosed player you could want, without being performatively hard-nosed (like Brett Gardner of the Yankees, for instance). If you’re not into that, perhaps you like Fenway Park?
Seattle Mariners
What in the hell are these guys doing here?
In all seriousness, the Mariners’ playoff odds graph reads like the world’s GDP chart pre-Industrial Revolution, and not because they haven’t been in the mix. They’re just…inexplicably successful. Their run differential suggests they should be 74-84. They’re 88-70. They should have left the party months ago. They’re still here.
The most fun thing about this team? There are a lot, but the simplest is that they haven’t made the playoffs since 2001, the year they won 116 games and lost the ALCS in five games to the Yankees. This is historic for them.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays are young, with a few key veterans and all the swagger in the world. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. might legitimately be the future of the game. Bo Bichette looks like a hockey player if Nintendo made Mario Hockey. Teoscar Hernández has had one of the quietest breakout years in recent memory. 31-year-old Marcus Semien, cast off by most of the league, has literally not missed a game and is playing at MVP-adjacent levels. Just a riot of a roster.
The most fun thing about this team? Watch them when a rally gets going. It’s a party and a half.
Oakland A’s
We’ll keep this brief, since they might be eliminated tonight, but it’s always Moneyball in Oakland. Not a lot of guys you know. Not that many guys you should know. Competitive, though. Always competitive.
The most fun thing about this team? There is no shortage of grit (warning: bloody pictures of Chris Bassitt post-line drive to the face).
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On the NL side (yes, we’re excluding some playoff teams from these, this is just for this week):
San Francisco Giants
The team that time forgot. Much like the Mariners, there’s a significant “How are they doing this?” element to the Giants, mostly a collection of resuscitated veterans that’s somehow dominated a schedule laced with games against the Dodgers and Padres, who were supposed to be two of the three or four best teams in the game this year.
The most fun thing about this team? The defiance of it all. Dodgers/Padres was briefly a massive rivalry. It still isn’t small. But the Giants have reclaimed their place as the Dodgers’ primary foe, as though the ghost of Bobby Thomson wouldn’t let the Giants sit this one out.
Los Angeles Dodgers
“Moneyball with money” was a phrase used a few years ago to describe the Dodgers, a collection of superstars, blossoming journeymen, and sensational young talents. It’s been a rough 2021, with Cody Bellinger in a prolonged slump, injuries all over the place, and the Trevor Bauer scandal that we can’t not mention but should stress is magnitudes more important in the human aspect than in the baseball aspect.
The most fun thing about this team? They’re loaded enough to have that “inevitable” feeling, which makes losses jaw-dropping and wins just demonstrations of excellence.
Atlanta Braves
In July, Ronald Acuña Jr. went down, and Atlanta looked lost. One of the best talents in the game was gone from their lineup, and with injuries plaguing the young pitching core, it looked like curtains in the NL East. Now, here they are. To be fair, the Mets absolutely collapsed, but the Braves have gone 40-26 since the All Star Break. Here they are.
The most fun thing about this team? This is a deep cut, but I’ll say Charlie Morton, the aging surprise ace who many, myself included, presumed would fall apart once MLB began enforcing the sticky-stuff rule (Morton was one of the early faces of the these-guys-seem-like-they’re-cheating movement). Somehow, he’s kept getting the outs, provoking a lot of questions that may never be answered regarding friction and the human hand. Good for him.
The least fun thing about this team? They still do the Tomahawk Chop, even after Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley, a member of Cherokee Nation, called out how disgusting that is back in 2019.
Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies have kind of flopped, surging with some creative trade deadline machinations but failing to get themselves on top of the raft for longer than a few days. They’ve also kind of flopped in that this team has repeatedly pulled off massive free agent signings in recent years (Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto) and hasn’t made the playoffs since 2011, a streak that looks likely to continue.
The most fun thing about this team? I mean, it’s Philadelphia. The shamelessness that could accompany a comeback this week. Followed by the absolute fury that would accompany a hypothetical Division Series loss. True to the brand, through and through.
