As the Major League Baseball schedule rounds into its final 10 days, the American League post-season picture remains as jumbled as ever. With three post-season spots, including two division titles, still up for grabs among six October hopefuls, the sprint to the finish line is sure to provide plenty of drama.
With the penultimate weekend of regular-season action set to get underway, the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians find themselves tied atop the AL Central and the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers are separated by just one game in the AL West, while the Toronto Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles remain in the hunt with those four clubs for the third and final wild-card berth.
Coming off a series loss to the Detroit Tigers, the Blue Jays will begin another pivotal series — this time in Arlington against the Rangers — two games back of the Guardians for a playoff spot.
At this point, Toronto not only needs to take care of business down in the Lone Star State to keep pace, but it will also need some help on the out-of-town scoreboard if it is to gain any ground on whichever AL Central club doesn't take hold of the division lead.
Texas delivered one of the defining blows of the Blue Jays' season when the two sides last met back in late June — a four-game sweep that included a trio of one-run losses for Toronto at home. This time around, however, the Blue Jays will hand the ball to Dylan Cease and José Soriano to begin this three-game set, with a Trey Yesavage return on the table for the series finale as they look to flip the script on the Rangers at Globe Life Field.
Beyond the tense matchup between the Blue Jays and Rangers, there is no shortage of stakes across baseball with the start of the post-season less than two weeks away. So, let's take stock of where things stand before the standings inevitably shift a time or two or three this weekend.
If the post-season started today
American League
No. 1 and AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays (93-59): Bye
No. 2 and AL Central-leading Chicago White Sox (78-75)*: Bye
No. 3 and AL West-leading Houston Astros (77-76) vs. No. 6 Cleveland Guardians (78-75)
No. 4 New York Yankees (88-64) vs. No. 5 Boston Red Sox (83-70)
*White Sox and Guardians are tied at 78-75, but Chicago holds the tiebreaker.
Within striking distance
The Guardians and White Sox have spent the week bouncing back and forth between the AL Central lead and the third wild-card spot. Cleveland took the top spot in the division with a series victory over Chicago on Wednesday, but a White Sox win over the Tigers on Thursday flipped the clubs once again, thanks to the tiebreaker.
It muddles things a little for teams in the hunt. For example, both the Blue Jays and Rangers own their tiebreakers over Cleveland but not Chicago, meaning they will probably continue to chase a moving target the rest of the way.
The Orioles, meanwhile, remained on the outskirts of the picture with a series sweep of the New York Mets as Pete Alonso went deep twice against his former club. Baltimore is in for the toughest test this weekend of any club in the race, with a three-game set on tap against the MLB-leading Milwaukee Brewers.
Three burning questions for AL playoff race this weekend
Does the Blue Jays' rotation bump pay off? With Thursday's off-day following their series against the Tigers, the Blue Jays had the opportunity to give Cease and Soriano an extra day of rest by keeping them on turn for Games 2 and 3 against Texas. Instead, Toronto decided to keep its pocket aces on normal rest, moving the duo up to Friday and Saturday to take its best shot at the Rangers, who had a four-game winning streak snapped Thursday with a late loss to the Red Sox. The shift also avoids a best-on-best matchup on Sunday, when Texas ace Jacob deGrom is scheduled to take the mound. Should Yesavage return for that outing, he is expected to throw around 40 to 45 pitches in an attempt to reduce the Blue Jays' reliance on their heavily worked bullpen. Casting forward, the move also lines Cease up to start Toronto's series finale against the Orioles next week and Soriano for the opener of the Blue Jays' closing three-game set against the Cincinnati Reds.
Who could take the AL Central lead? As the Guardians and White Sox jockey for control of their division, Cleveland appears to have the advantage on paper this weekend. The Guardians will host the Athletics, while Chicago will finish off a four-game series with the Tigers as they look to get back on track. Both the A's and Tigers have emerged as pesky opponents this month, carrying above-.500 records thus far in September. But there's no doubt that Detroit's youth and recent surge — it has won seven of its last 10 — could throw a wrench into the White Sox's designs on only their second division title since 2008. As things currently stand, the AL Central winner is also positioned to earn a bye through the first round of the post-season tournament, something that could obviously prove quite valuable on the side of the bracket that likely won't feature the junior circuit's top three teams by record.
Can Orioles keep their slim playoff hopes alive in tough series vs. Brewers? With its FanGraphs playoff odds sitting at 4.0 per cent, Baltimore's season is seemingly on its last legs. While the Orioles did well to take all three games from the Mets at Citi Field, their October hopes may just be on the line this weekend as Jacob Misiorowski and the 95-win Brewers come to town. Although "The Miz" isn't scheduled to pitch until Sunday, Baltimore is currently scheduled to start "TBD," Trevor Rogers and Brandon Young in the series. It might not be the ideal group to run out against the second-best run-producing lineup in baseball, but if the Orioles are to shock the world over the coming week and a half, they'll need a number of their pitchers to find another gear. At 75-78, Baltimore would need to go 8-1 over its final nine games to reach 83 wins, and with matchups against Toronto and the New York Yankees on deck following this meeting with Milwaukee, the Orioles can't afford more than a single slip-up if they want to stay in the mix.
Playoff odds report
Here is what FanGraphs and Baseball Reference are projecting, as of Friday morning, in terms of playoff odds among American League teams battling for post-season spots.
Tampa Bay's FanGraphs odds: 100% | Tampa Bay's Baseball Reference odds: 100%
Chicago's FanGraphs odds: 80.5% | Chicago's Baseball Reference odds: 88.1%
Houston’s FanGraphs odds: 81.3% | Houston’s Baseball Reference odds: 86.6%
New York’s FanGraphs odds: 100% | New York’s Baseball Reference odds: 100%
Boston’s FanGraphs odds: 100% | Boston’s Baseball Reference odds: >99.9%
Cleveland's FanGraphs odds: 76.4% | Cleveland's Baseball Reference odds: 70.7%
Texas’s FanGraphs odds: 32.9% | Texas’s Baseball Reference odds: 26.7%
Toronto's FanGraphs odds: 24.6% | Toronto's Baseball Reference odds: 22.7%
Baltimore's FanGraphs odds: 4.0% | Baltimore's Baseball Reference odds: 4.9%
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