SI:AM | MLB’s Anticlimactic Closing Weekend

Despite the expanded field, most of the playoff races have already been decided.

The Mets and Braves may have to play a doubleheader Monday to decide the NL wild-card race. / Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m back after a vacation that included one of my favorite sports experiences in years.

In today’s SI:AM:

😢 A’s say goodbye to Oakland
✅ Week 4 NFL picks
📺 Netflix’s new Vince McMahon doc

What’s at stake this weekend

When MLB expanded the playoff field to 12 teams before the 2022 season, one of the goals was to keep more teams alive in the postseason hunt for longer. And the format has succeeded on that front. On Aug. 1, 20 of the 30 teams in the majors had at least a 9% chance of making the playoffs, according to Fangraphs. But most of those teams quickly fell out of the race and as the season’s final weekend begins, the playoff field is mostly set. Eight of the 12 spots have already been claimed, with just six teams in the hunt for the remaining four berths. Here’s what’s still up for grabs.

The NL wild-card mess

The most interesting race will take an extra day to be decided. The New York Mets and Atlanta Braves are two of the three teams (along with the Arizona Diamondbacks) battling for the final two NL wild-card spots and were supposed to meet in Atlanta earlier this week for a three game series to potentially decide the race. Hurricane Helene’s impact on the Southeast threw a major wrench in the schedule, though.

The Mets and Braves were able play Tuesday’s game as scheduled—a 5–1 win for Atlanta. But Wednesday and Thursday’s games were postponed and rescheduled as part of a doubleheader on Monday, one day after the originally scheduled final day of the regular season.

MLB could have avoided the doubleheader with some better planning, though. One option would have been to play at least one of the games this past Monday, which was an off day for both teams. That would have required plenty of notice to shuffle the schedule, but it was clear by then that the impending storm would make playing Wednesday and Thursday’s games very difficult. The league also failed to take advantage of clear skies earlier in the day on Wednesday, choosing instead to keep that night’s game at its originally scheduled 7 p.m. start time. By that time, the weather had taken a turn for the worse and there was no choice but to postpone the game.

The worst part of the doubleheader is that it will take place on what was supposed to be an off day before the start of the postseason. It’s possible—depending upon what happens with the D-Backs over the weekend—that the Braves and Mets will play two games in Atlanta on Monday, both teams will qualify for the playoffs, and then one team will have to hop on a plane immediately after to begin their postseason series in Milwaukee the following day and the other will have to fly clear across the country to San Diego for its first series.

Now, in terms of the standings, the Mets (87–70) and D-Backs (88–71) are tied for the remaining two playoff spots, with the Braves one game back at 86–71. Atlanta does, however, currently hold the tiebreaker over both teams and is guaranteed to hold the tiebreaker over the D-Backs regardless of what happens over the final weekend. The Mets also hold the tiebreaker over the D-Backs.

All three contenders are playing quality teams this weekend. Arizona will close the season with three games against the San Diego Padres, who don’t have much to play for after the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the NL West on Thursday night. (San Diego is locked into the top NL wild-card spot.) The Braves are playing the Kansas City Royals, who need just one win to clinch a wild-card spot. The Mets are playing the Milwaukee Brewers, who are locked into the NL’s No. 3 seed as the Central division champions.

The fact that New York and Atlanta have five games left to play while Arizona only has three makes it difficult to lay out all the clinching scenarios, but the fate of all three teams will be a lot clearer on Sunday, potentially setting the stage for a de facto two-game playoff in Atlanta on Monday.

The AL field is mostly set

The AL wild-card race is much less interesting. The Baltimore Orioles have already clinched the top spot, while the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals hold the next two spots with identical 85–74 records. The Minnesota Twins are still clinging to hope at 82–77 but need to win all three of their games against Baltimore this weekend and hope that either Kansas City or Detroit is swept. It’s unlikely, but not impossible.

The race for home field advantage

All six division races have already been decided, but the top teams in each league still have something to play for. The New York Yankees (93–66) and Cleveland Guardians (92–67) are neck and neck in pursuit of home field advantage throughout the AL playoffs. The Yankees hold the tiebreaker, so they can clinch with at least two wins this weekend against the Pittsburgh Pirates or at least two Cleveland losses to the Houston Astros. In the NL, it’s the Dodgers (95–64) and Philadelphia Phillies (94–65) hoping to secure home field. The Phillies are one game back but hold the tiebreaker. Of those four teams, only the Guardians have been eliminated from the race for the best record in baseball and home field advantage in the World Series.

The A’s said goodbye to Oakland on Thursday. / Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• Stephanie Apstein attended the final A’s game in Oakland, where fans mourned the city’s loss of yet another pro team.

• All but one of our experts correctly picked the Cowboys to beat the Giants on Thursday night. (Sorry, Conor Orr.) Here are the rest of their picks for Week 4.

• Here is Jimmy Traina’s review of Netflix’s new Vince McMahon documentary.

• A Las Vegas casino owner has offered to pay UNLV quarterback Matt Sluka the $100,000 he says he was promised.

• Pat Forde wrote about how UNLV became an unlikely center of the college football universe this week.

• Shohei Ohtani’s historic 50th home run ball is now the subject of a lawsuit.

• The Marlins played a truly terrible game on Thursday night but still managed to beat the Twins.

The top five…

… things I saw last night:

5. Aaron Judge’s fifth straight game with a home run. He now has 58 on the season with three games to play.
4. The Giants’ nifty double-fake screen pass.
3. Giants rookie Malik Nabers’s ankle-breaking route that sent a Cowboys defender stumbling to the ground.
2. Shohei Ohtani struggling to put his goggles on during the Dodgers’ clubhouse celebration. Can you blame him? This is the first time in his career he’s had anything to celebrate.
1. A’s manager Mark Kotsay’s message to the Oakland fans after the final game at the Coliseum.