Six teams in Major League Baseball have won division titles and will play in the Division Series. However, all four wildcard spots remain open between the National and American League, as the 162-game regular season enters its final weekend.
On Saturday, that could all change as three teams, the Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets and San Francisco Giants can clinch a postseason berth on their own.
The Orioles as of Wednesday morning trailed the Toronto Blue Jays by two games for the top wildcard spot in the AL. However, since then, things have flipped, with Baltimore winning the past two games of their series with Toronto and defeating the New York Yankees on Friday night.
If Baltimore wins and both the Tigers and Blue Jays lose, the Orioles will be the host of next week’s AL wildcard game. Still in the running for the wildcard in the AL besides Baltimore are the Blue Jays, Tigers and Seattle Mariners.
In the National League, the New York Mets beat Philadelphia 5-1 on Friday, which clinched at the very least a tiebreaker game versus St. Louis.
However, the Mets have a magic number of one on Saturday for a wildcard berth with a win or a St. Louis loss clinching them a wildcard spot.
New York could lock up the wildcard home field advantage with wins Saturday and Sunday and a loss by both the Cardinals and Giants.
San Francisco trails the Mets by one game and is one ahead of St. Louis. It needs a win and a loss by St. Louis today to clinch a wildcard spot.
The season is a long 162 games but it is fitting that it comes down to the final weekend for at least four of the 10 playoff spots left to be filled.
Home field advantage is still up for grabs in one of the two division series in both leagues. Both the Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers have wrapped of home field advantage throughout the postseason in their league, but two division series have home field advantage still up in the air. Let’s play ball.
