One more week, and the Major League Baseball regular season will be over. One more week, and then the playoffs will begin. But wait: postseason baseball hasn’t arrived yet. There’s one more week. The Promised Land of the playoffs can’t come until baseball traverses the desert of this one final week. Perhaps this final week, though, is not a desert, but simply a teaser, a preview, a foretaste of the Promised Land to come.
Unfortunately for Philadelphia fans, the Phillies are well out of contention this year. Young talents such as Maikel Franco, Odubel Herrera and Aaron Nola give hope for a bright Phillies future, but at a record of 69-85, the only role the Phils can manage for these playoffs is that of a spoiler.
Perhaps the Phillies can keep their rivals, the Mets, out of the playoffs, as they finish the regular season with a three-game series in Philadelphia next weekend.
New York is currently in first place in the National League Wild Card race. The Mets are doing about as well as they can, seeing as the Nationals were so dominant this season. Behind the Mets in the NL Wild Card race are the Giants and Cardinals, each with an 81-73 record.
The Giants have a more difficult schedule this week, as they end the season facing their division rival, the Dodgers. The Cardinals get to face the struggling Reds and then end the season against the still-fighting Pirates.
What might end up changing the difficulty of the matchups is the timing of LA’s Division Clincher. If the NL West is won before the Giants face the Dodgers, then the Giants may face a Dodgers team resting its star players for the postseason.
It will be interesting to see whether or not the Giants can find a way into the postseason again, as their streak of even year luck is on the line.
For the past three even seasons of baseball, the Giants have wound up on top, winning three championships. Some players from all three of the championships still remain with San Francisco, including home- grown stars Buster Posey (catcher) and Madison Bumgarner (left-handed pitcher).
The manager, Bruce Bochy, is also still around. The ‘Giant streak’ on the line adds particular intrigue to the NL Wild Card race.
In the American League, the Wild Card race is more crowded. As the Rangers have already clinched, and Boston and Cleveland have all but sealed their respective tickets to the postseason, there is a cluster of five teams, more or less, fighting for the two Wild Card spots. Toronto appears to be in the best shape of all these teams, with an 84-69 record due to the power of stars Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion.
Next in line, tied with Detroit, are the homer-happy Orioles. In the first inning of a game in August, the Ori- oles went back-to-back-to-back and tallied four home runs. The birds may not steal bases, but they can sure hit the ball out of Camden Yards. Three Orioles, Mark Trumbo, Chris Davis and Manny Machado, have eclipsed the 35-homer mark. For the Tigers, a strong bounce back campaign by Justin Verlander, along with the expected production from Miguel Cabrera, has brought Detroit to where they are. Verlander has earned 15 wins and racked up well over 200 strikeouts, while Cabrera has hit over 300 with more than 30 home runs and nearly 100 RBI.
Seattle and Houston come next in the standings. For these teams, the Wild Card is the only chance to get into the playoffs, as the Rangers already clinched their division. Houston made the playoffs last year and has somewhat underperformed this year, but Seattle has been more of a sleeper contender, and has come onto the scene thanks partly to the resurgence of Robinson Cano as an elite bat. The last week of the American League regular season should be fun to watch.
This year, the Cubs add intrigue to the playoff picture. The Curse of the Goat has kept the Cubs out of the World Series since 1945, and the Cubs haven’t won a title since 1908.
With an eccentric manager, Joe Maddon, in the dugout, a curse-reversing specialist, Theo Epstein, in the front office, and a young, talented team featuring sluggers Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo on the field, the Cubs are in their best position ever to reverse the curse. Perhaps this is the year that a championship comes to the North Side.
Perhaps the Cubs will face the Red Sox in a curse-breaking World Series. Perhaps goats will fly. At any rate, one thing is for sure: this postseason will be special. Let’s enjoy it. But first, let’s enjoy the final week.
Early Sunday morning, the baseball world lost one of its best pitchers. Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez was tragically killed in a boating accident, along with two others.
Fernandez was named National League Rookie of the Year in 2013, and was a two-time All-Star. Fernandez had an MLB-best 12.6 strikeouts per nine innings in 2016, and was a strong contender for the NL Cy Young Award this year.
Isaac Linton can be reached at HL820875@wcupa.edu.