Six days left, six teams in, and the Cubs and Padres are tied
The last week of a baseball season is the best week of a baseball season, because every game is a playoff game for somebody. Here is who is in, who is sweating, and why a tiebreaker decided in June is about to matter in October.
The tie that is not really a tie
The Cubs and Padres are both 87-69. On paper that is a coin flip for the No. 4 seed, which is the one that gets to host the Wild Card Series. It is not a coin flip. The Cubs own the tiebreaker over the Padres and over the Phillies, on head-to-head records built back when nobody was paying attention. If it ends level, Chicago stays home and San Diego gets on a plane. That is the whole reason a regular-season series in the middle of summer matters, and the Padres are about to learn it in the most annoying way possible.
The Phillies at 86-70 are one back and hold the tiebreaker over San Diego but not Chicago, so their ceiling in a three-way tie is the second wild card. Arizona at 82-74 is four back with six to play. The math is not dead but the body is cold.
The American League is where the chaos is
The Yankees are in at 89-66 but they are not winning the East. The Rays, 95-60, have clinched a spot and lead them by six with a week to play, which is the kind of sentence that would have gotten you laughed out of a bar in April. Tampa Bay has not clinched the division yet, but it would take a collapse. Boston clinched a wild card at 84-72. Then it gets strange: the White Sox are 80-76 and holding the third spot, and they are also in a fight with Cleveland for the Central. The Astros are 77-79 and the Blue Jays 77-80, three and a half back, and Houston is simultaneously one game behind Texas in the West. So the Astros can still win a division at two games under .500 or miss the playoffs entirely. Baseball is a wonderful sport.
What I actually watch this week
Two things. First, whether the Cubs protect the No. 4 seed, because the difference between hosting a best-of-three and playing it in San Diego is enormous. Second, the Rangers-Astros race in the West, where one game separates a division title from possibly nothing. The rest is mostly settled. Milwaukee has the inside track to the NL's top seed and a bye. The Dodgers and Braves have their divisions. Tampa Bay, of all teams, is running away with the East and should have it locked within days.
Where I land
People say the 162-game season is too long. Weeks like this are the argument against that. Every one of those tiebreakers was decided by a game in May or July that felt like nothing at the time. Now they decide who sleeps in their own bed in October. If you only start paying attention to baseball this week, fine, but understand you are watching the last six chapters of a book, and the ending was written in the middle.
Standings and clinches per CBS Sports (Sept. 21) and ESPN's playoff tracker. Records move nightly this week; opinion is the taproom's.