Until Sunday, the 12 teams in playoff position at the All-Star break were the same 12 teams holding playoff spots with one week to play. No more. The Reds leapfrogged the sagging Mets, and the molten-hot Guardians can replace the Tigers as soon as Tuesday. You want chaos? This is your week, when baseball becomes a high-stakes, minute-by-minute sprint.
The third wild card is proving its intention: inject sizzle back into September. And don’t worry about a watered-down playoff field. The six No. 6 seeds in three years of the 12-team format have won between 84 and 89 games with an average of 86.9 wins. We again should see the last two teams qualify in that range.
How crazy is the tournament? In the three seasons with six playoff teams in each league, the No. 6 seeds (32–26) have won as many postseason games as the No. 1 seeds (32–22). Just get in, baby.
Wild card spots are not all that’s at stake this week. We’ve got playoff seedings, major awards and MLB records also up for grabs. Here’s your guide to what’s on the line in Chaos Week:
The collapse of the Mets
They no longer control their playoff fate now that the Reds, who hold the tiebreaker over the Mets, caught them for the third wild card.
Since Aug. 19 the Mets are 13–18, including 3–8 against the Marlins and Nationals. But this is not just a late fade. From 45–24 in their first 69 games to 35–52 in their next 87, the Mets have been a bad team longer than they’ve been a good team.
They have used more pitchers than any team in history, received the fourth fewest innings from starters, lost more games out of the bullpen than any playoff contender, walked far too many batters, not once rallied to win after trailing after eight innings and whiffed on trade deadline acquisitions Cedric Mullins and Ryan Helsley, who had been in one organization for a decade before they were dropped into the heat of a New York pennant race.
This week the Mets play three games at Wrigley Field against the Cubs (where they see pitchers Cade Horton, Matt Boyd and Shota Imanaga) and three games in Miami against the Marlins, while asking three kids in their rotation to save their season.
The Reds have three at home against Pittsburgh (including one start by Paul Skenes) and finish with three at Milwaukee against the Brewers. Cincinnati has the edge because of its starting pitching. It also has the tiebreaker advantage over Arizona, which still lurks in the wild card race.
The Tigers in freefall
Detroit takes a six-game losing streak into Cleveland for a huge series against the Guardians that starts Tuesday, then goes to Fenway to finish against the Red Sox, another team hanging on by its fingernails. The Tigers are in a 7–18 freefall in which their 11.5-game AL Central lead has shrunk to one.
The length of the season has exposed the flaws of the Tigers. They strike out too much, their bullpen has the worst strikeout rate in baseball and they are a 46–54 team when anybody other than Tarik Skubal or Casey Mize starts.
American League musical chairs
The Tigers (85–71), Red Sox (85–71), Guardians (84–72) and Astros (84–72) are separated by one game with six to play and three spots up for grabs. One spot will go to either Detroit or Cleveland as the AL Central winner (Cleveland wins the head-to-head tiebreaker with one more win). That leaves three teams for two wild card spots. Here is the skinny on the race:
Tigers: The good news is by finishing against Cleveland and Boston they don’t need help. Their fate is smack in front of them. But that schedule—finishing on the road against two contenders—is also the bad news, especially after Detroit hit .182 against the Guardians while getting swept in three games last week. The Tigers are in trouble, especially if they lose with Skubal on the mound Tuesday in Cleveland.
Red Sox: They are 3–10 against Toronto and Detroit, their opponents this week. They see veteran pitchers Kevin Gausman, Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber in Toronto. Holding tiebreakers against Cleveland and Houston and with head-to-head games with Detroit, Boston still has a good chance of getting in.
Guardians: Manager Stephen Vogt went to a six-man rotation to survive 17 games in 17 days. It worked, not just to keep his starters fresh, but also because pitching coach Carl Willis had them throw two bullpen sessions in between starts to dial in mechanics and pitch shaping. Cleveland is 16–5 with a 2.32 ERA this month. Cleveland is the only one of these four bubble teams to finish all this week at home. If they take two of three from Detroit, the Guardians will be in first place (by virtue of the head-to-head tiebreaker) and control their fate entering a series against Texas.
Astros: This is the bubble team in the most trouble, if only because they lose the tiebreakers to the Tigers, Red Sox and Guardians and they don’t have Yordan Alvarez (ankle) in the lineup. The Astros are 12–16 in August and September without Alvarez. They need to go at least 4–2 on the road against the Athletics and Angels.
If you like positional importance, you like Cal Raleigh (118 games behind the plate) over Aaron Judge (89 games in the outfield). But when it comes to impacting games at bat, Judge has the significant lead.
Raleigh is having a historic season when it comes to comparisons to switch hitters, hitters who have played for the Mariners and catchers. Judge is having a historic season compared to … well, everybody, especially dead legends. He is likely to join Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle as the only players to hit 50 home runs and win a batting title. He leads in all three percentage triple crown categories—. He has been better than Raleigh with runners in scoring position (.327 to .242) and better in September across all three slash categories, including an absurd .506 OBP.
The slight edge overall goes to Judge. But it’s close enough for Raleigh to make one last push this week to steal it. How about four more home runs to get to 62?
The 50-150 club
Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers needs nine runs to become the second player since Ted Williams in 1949 to score 150 runs (Jeff Bagwell had 152 in 2000.) Only two players have hit 50 homers and scored 150 runs: Babe Ruth (four times) and Foxx.
The (crowded) 30-30 club
Jazz Chisholm Jr., Jose Ramírez, Juan Soto and Corbin Carroll are in. Julio Rodríguez (two stolen bases), Pete Crow-Armstrong (one home run) and Francisco Lindor (two home runs) are close. There has never been a season with five players reaching 30-30.
The (sparse) 200-inning club
Garrett Crochet of Boston and Logan Webb of San Francisco are getting there. Skubal may get there if the Tigers need him to pitch Game 162 on Sunday. And that’s likely it. That would mark the fewest 200-inning pitchers in any season in history.
The (closed for renovations) 100-win club
Unless the Brewers go 5–1 this week, this will mark the second straight season no team has won 100 games. There were 22 100-win teams in the previous eight full seasons.
These things run in cycles. There were no 100-win teams from 2012–14. The talent gap between teams has shrunk. And the incentive to max out wins has declined with the expanded playoff format and the conservative use of pitchers to try to keep them healthy.
The single season strikeout record
With 215 strikeouts, Nationals outfielder James Wood is just eight strikeouts short of tying the record of Mark Reynolds that has stood for 16 years. The Nationals have six games remaining.
No starting pitcher has won the Cy Young Award without a winning record. Only two were one game better than .500 over a full season: Félix Hernández (13–12) in 2010 and Jacob deGrom (10–9) in 2018. Skenes is 10–10 with one start remaining: Wednesday in Cincinnati against the Reds.
Rock bottom for the Rockies
Colorado needs to go 4–2 to avoid a 116th loss, which would put it behind only the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (134) and 1962 New York Mets (120) as the third worst team in NL history. The Rockies already have clinched the worst run differential in MLB (-406), blowing away the 93-year-old record of the 1932 Red Sox (-345).