Editor’s Note: This column was written using standings as of Sept. 25.
With six days left in the Major League Baseball regular season, the league and its fans are reaping the benefits of an expanded playoff system.
New for the 2012 season, two additional Wild Card spots – one in each league – guarantee 10 teams a shot at the World Series come October instead of just eight.
Meant to increase the amount of meaningful baseball late in the season and spurn additional interest in the sport as many teams’ playoff hopes dwindle, the expanded playoff is having its desired effect.
As of Wednesday afternoon, eight American League teams are still in the running for five playoff spots, even the least likely of which have a legitimate shot at prolonging its season.
The Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox are currently tied for the lead in the AL Central, and the Baltimore Orioles are just 1.5 games back of the New York Yankees in the AL East.
With the AL East once again the strongest division in baseball — although paced by a different mix of teams than it was in the past — the Orioles and Yankees both look destined for postseason baseball unless either tanks in the final week of the regular season. Whoever finishes with the second-best record in the division will almost certainly earn a Wild Card spot, and there’s still an outside chance the surging Tampa Bay Rays claim the new Wild Card playoff berth.
The Rays and Orioles finish their regular seasons with three-game series that could determine the playoff destinies of teams across the league.
Keeping a watchful eye on the series will be the Oakland Athletics, who are currently four games back of the Texas Rangers in the AL West and in line for the second Wild Card slot. The Los Angeles Angels, winners of four straight and two games behind the Athletics in the Wild Card standings, could crash the party in Oakland and steal a trip to the playoffs in the waning days of the regular season.
If I were a betting man, I’d pick the Yankees, Tigers and Rangers to win their respective divisions, with the Orioles and Athletics — the surprise teams of 2012 — earning the AL Wild Cards.
In the National League, five teams are locked into the playoffs, with the Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants already clinching the NL Central and NL West respectively. The Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves also know their seasons will last into October.
The Nationals will do enough to maintain a four-game lead in the NL East to win the division, and the Braves can coast their way into the postseason after Freddie Freeman knocked a two-run, walk-off home run Tuesday night to clinch a playoff spot.
The Braves prolonged Chipper Jones’ farewell tour, but maybe for just one game, as the two Wild Card teams from each league will play one game for the right to play the division winner with the best regular season record.
Remarkably, five teams could play their way into the playoffs via the new Wild Card, but four of them will have to reel in the defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, who have a 4.5 game lead on the nearest competitor.
The Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Pittsburgh Pirates basically need to win each of their remaining games to have a chance, and even that wouldn’t be enough unless they got some help from the Cardinals.
However the remaining playoff spots are filled, a 10-team playoff is better than an eight-team playoff, even if the Wild Card teams don’t make it through their respective divisional series.
The late-September drama has potential to be as good as any in baseball’s history, so soak it up, baseball fans.
Scott Branson is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from Austin, Texas.
