With six playoff berths available in each league, and tightly bunched standings among both division leaders and wild-card entrants, the final week of the Major League Baseball season could bring significant volatility to the American and National leagues’ pecking orders.
Come Sept. 28, all 2,430 games will have been contested, TV times announced and charter planes pointed toward playoff matchups. Yet plenty can change between now and then.
With that, USA TODAY Sports projects the postseason field – though you’re encouraged to use pencil, not pen, in filling out those brackets:
American League
Nos. 1-2 seeds: Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners
The coveted first-round bye that division winners with the two best records earn has been hard to give away as virtually every division leader has struggled mightily of late. Yet the dogged Mariners – they are 15-1 since Sept. 6 – simply stole the AL West crown from Houston as the Detroit Tigers collapsed; suddenly, the Mariners got vaulted to the playoff penthouse.
Thankfully for the Blue Jays, the New York Yankees haven’t been as red-hot in pursuit, and Toronto has a manageable magic number of four with six games remaining. They should be able to sit back and await the survivor of an East wild-card showdown.
No. 3 Detroit Tigers vs. No. 6 Houston Astros
Bold move here, but we see the Tigers shaking off their September malaise – 13 losses in 18 games – just in time to keep hold of the division. With such a knee-buckling final two weeks, the Tigers really could use a bye to the ALDS, but they aren’t making up three games in six days on the Mariners, who hold the tiebreaker.
As for the Astros? It’s tempting to write them off, and perhaps they deserve as much after an ugly weekend pratfall against the Mariners, who blasted them three nights in a row to take hold of the AL West lead. But the schedule offers a reprieve: Three games at the Athletics – though playing in Yolo County can always get unpredictable – and what should be a soft landing in Anaheim with three against the Angels.
It’s a tough bounce for the Guardians, who can significantly rewrite this script by taking two of three from the Tigers before heading to Texas, where the Rangers are sitting ducks, having just got swept by the Miami Marlins. But perhaps this is where the joyride ends.
No. 4 New York Yankees vs. No. 5 Boston Red Sox
Blue Jays, beware: The Yankees can still make some last-week hay with a six-game homestand against the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles, having just taken three of four at Camden Yards.
If nothing else, the absolute lock of this bracket is that the Yankees will open at home; whether that’s in the wild card or ALDS is likely up to the Blue Jays.
The Red Sox, meanwhile, are in a quietly tenuous position, with three games at Toronto before finishing against the Tigers at Fenway Park, the toughest final stretch of any contender. And while they’re the No. 2 wild card at the moment, they’re just a game up on both Cleveland and Houston.
Mercifully for them, they hold the tiebreaker on both clubs. Best-case scenario: Their fate is locked in by Saturday, enabling them to skip Lucas Giolito in the season finale (wouldn’t Detroit be happy with that?) and save him and Garrett Crochet for the Yankees.
National League
Nos. 1-2 seeds: Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies
At this time of year, boring is good. And the Brewers and Phillies have been locked into the top two seeds for more than a month. Good on them for taking care of business at a time of year attention spans can wander.
No. 3 Los Angeles Dodgers vs. No. 6 Cincinnati Reds
The closing week’s biggest gut punch will be delivered to the odd team out for the final NL wild card. And, no, it’s not narrative, just reality: That team will likely be the New York Mets.
It’s a just dessert for a club that’s gone 35-52 since mid-June and now faces this final-week quandary: Three games at the Chicago Cubs and Miami Marlins.
The sequencing is brutal: Had the Mets drawn the Cubs on the weekend, they’d likely be resting a couple of their top starters. Instead, they’ll get Rookie of the Year contender Cade Horton and All-Star Matt Boyd at Wrigley Field.
And during the weekend? Well, they don’t want any part of a Marlins club that’s won 10 of their past 11 and is playing for nothing but a shot at a .500 season. Dangerous as hell.
So let’s welcome the Reds, who close their home schedule with three against the last-place Pirates (though Paul Skenes will square off against Hunter Greene on Wednesday, a rare bit of midweek appointment viewing). Their final three games will be at Milwaukee; with a five-day break coming up, top seeds in recent years have tended to play their regulars all the way through, which isn’t a great break for the Reds. But, they do hold that tiebreaker on the Mets. And they’re taking a bold approach lining up Greene for a playoff Game 1 rather than regular season Game 162.
The Dodgers? It will be fascinating to see how they’ll align their playoff pitching rotation, though if they can get through a wild card round in just two games, they won’t have to tip their hands beyond Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell. Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan, Clayton Kershaw and – gulp – Shohei Ohtani might have to wait a round.
No. 4 Chicago Cubs vs. No. 5 San Diego Padres
One thing you probably won’t be seeing in this rematch of the 1984 NLCS: The Cubs inviting Leon ‘Bull’ Durham to throw out the first pitch. It was Durham who enabled a ground ball to squeeze between his legs at first base, the turning point in the winner-take-all Game 5 that year (kids, the playoffs used to be a lot quicker).
Instead, it’ll be a pair of teams that have been virtually unseen and unheard from since the Padres’ wild trade deadline haul. With San Diego five games up on the Reds/Mets, this matchup is just about locked in, though the Padres can flip home field if they make up three games on the Cubs.