*wiggling with excitement*
It’s here. The final weekend of regular season baseball. And it’s a good one.
Housekeeping
The Yankees and Giants have yet to clinch their respective desired playoff spots: The Giants lead the Dodgers by two with three games to play, the Yankees lead the Red Sox and Mariners by two (and the Blue Jays by three) with three games to play. Theoretically, each of these could clinch their spot tonight (the Giants with a win and a Dodgers loss, the Yankees with a win and losses by the Red Sox and Mariners), but more likely is that they wrap it up tomorrow, with Sunday also a possibility.
The Yankees are hosting the already-clinched-their-seed Tampa Bay Rays. The Giants are hosting the playing-out-the-string San Diego Padres. The Dodgers are hosting the already-clinched-their-seed Milwaukee Brewers.
It’s baseball, and these are professionals, so no sure things, but the Giants are about 90% likely to win the NL West, and the Yankees are about 96% likely to end up with one of the two Wild Card spots in the AL.
The Good Stuff
Now, the main event. The race for the second AL Wild Card spot.
There are three teams left. The trying-to-hold-on Red Sox. The trying-to-shock-just-about-everyone Mariners. The hoping-for-some-help Blue Jays. The Red Sox and Mariners are tied at 89 wins and 70 losses. The Blue Jays are one game back, 88 and 71. Here’s the weekend schedule, with probable starting pitchers where available:
Friday
Boston (Eduardo Rodriguez) @ Washington (Josh Rogers). 7:05 PM EDT.
Baltimore (Thomas Eshelman) @ Toronto (Steven Matz). 7:07 PM EDT.
Anaheim (José Suarez) @ Seattle (Marco Gonzales). 10:10 PM EDT.
Saturday
Baltimore (John Means) @ Toronto (Alek Manoah). 2:07 PM EDT.
Boston (TBD) @ Washington (Josiah Gray). 3:05 PM EDT.
Anaheim (Jhonathan Diaz) @ Seattle (Chris Flexen). 9:10 PM EDT.
Sunday
Boston (TBD) @ Washington (TBD). 3:05 PM EDT.
Baltimore (Bruce Zimmermann) @ Toronto (Hyun Jin Ryu). 3:07 PM EDT.
Anaheim (TBD) @ Seattle (Tyler Anderson). 3:10 PM EDT.
***
If we end with a two-way tie, the teams in question will play a one-game tiebreaker on Monday. If it’s the Red Sox and Mariners, I believe the game will be in Boston (based on head-to-head regular season winning percentage). If it’s the Red Sox and Blue Jays, I believe the game will also be in Boston. If it’s the Blue Jays and the Mariners, I believe the game will be in Seattle.
If it’s a three-way tie, it appears likeliest that the Mariners would host the Blue Jays in Seattle on Monday, with the Red Sox visiting the winner on Tuesday. If this happens, there’ll have to be an adjustment made to the postseason schedule, because as of now the AL Wild Card Game is supposed to be Tuesday night.
There’s a chance—a 1-in-200 chance, per FanGraphs—that we end up with a four-way tie. This isn’t exceptionally chaotic in terms of what would happen Monday and Tuesday (we’d just have a single-elimination bracket between the four teams, with the winners from Monday playing in the Wild Card Game on Tuesday), but it’d be a lot of do-or-die baseball, which would be a good time.
For those hoping for the three-way tie, the chance of that is 9.1%, or roughly one-in-eleven. For those hoping for any sort of tie in the AL Wild Card race, the chance of that happening is roughly 37.5%, or three-in-eight.
As far as the Wild Card spot itself goes, FanGraphs has the Red Sox at 60.1%, the Mariners at 29.8%, and the Blue Jays at 13.5%.
***
That’s a lot of information. What to watch for in the games themselves? It’s an interesting case, because on the one side in all three of the Red Sox/Blue Jays/Mariners series are men who’ve been playing baseball now for seven or eight months straight and get little out of winning besides internal satisfaction, while the opposing dugout is stocked with guys fighting for the chance to do something they’ll only get to do once or twice or a handful of times in their lives, which is play in the Major League Baseball playoffs. Still, the drama will be high, especially in Toronto and Seattle, where the contenders will have home crowds (we’ll see how Bostonians travel to Washington) and the weather should be beautiful (with the exception of Sunday in Toronto, where the roof’s expected to be closed; and for those wondering, D.C. looks clear from rain itself).
For the Red Sox, there’s the weight of expectations. They were close to having the division in hand two months ago. Now, they’re just trying to hold on to a chance to play an elimination game in the Bronx.
For the Mariners, there’s the weight of years of failure. They haven’t made the playoffs in two decades. They know it.
For the Blue Jays, there’s the weight of talent. They are, on paper, the best of these three teams, and while the heart of the roster should be intact next year, every opportunity missed cuts deep.
It’ll be a fun weekend, and we’ll check back in tomorrow or Sunday if the Yankees get themselves in a pickle tiebreaker-wise or if the Giants/Dodgers race turns turbulent. In the meantime, enjoy the games. Preferably with some sort of split-screen situation. Check if you can get an MLB TV free trial if you don’t have it. This is the weekend to use it.
