Major League Baseball's Incredibly Wild Wild Card Races

Two and a half weeks ago, I wrote this:

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"Do you know why Major League Baseball wants to devalue their own regular season by adding playoff teams? On September 9th, there are five teams with any real chance of getting to the playoffs in the American League and four teams who have basically locked up playoff spots in the National League.

Sure, there still could be a late-season run by a team that currently looks out of the race, but that run will have to coincide with an epic collapse for it to mean anything."

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Whoops.

Heading into the games of September 26, both Wild Card races are down to one game as the Braves and Red Sox have done everything in their power to give the last respective playoff spots away.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

On September 9, the Braves were seven games up on St. Louis in the loss column. Now, Atlanta has to try and stay one game ahead of the Cardinals by beating the Phillies in a three-game set to end the season. Yes, the Phillies are 2-8 in their last 10 since clinching and yes, the Phillies are fresh off their worst losing streak in 11 years, but the team with nothing to play for suddenly has something to play for against Atlanta. They can knock their division rivals out of the playoffs before they even begin.

Of course, the Cardinals will have a lot to do with that. Albert Pujols and company have three games at Houston—the worst team in baseball by a mile. St. Louis is 8-4 this season against Houston, having last faced the Astros back in July. Since then, Houston's record is 20-34, which if you can believe it, is actually a better winning percentage (.370) than its overall season rate (.346).

It will be interesting to see how the Phillies handle the Braves series. They've already announced that Wednesday's game will be a bullpen game, much like Saturday's loss to the Mets. But Cliff Lee goes Monday and Roy Oswalt Tuesday, and the Phillies will need to carry some momentum into the playoffs if they expect to do what everyone expects them to do—get to (and win) the World Series. These games may not matter in the standings for the Phillies, but they still matter.

The Phillies have the best record in the National League, meaning they will face the Wild Card team unless that team comes from their division. That's a terrible rule, by the way. If two teams from the same division make the playoffs, why can't they play each other, guaranteeing at least one from that division making the LCS?

If the Phillies sweep the Braves, the Cardinals would need one win to force a one-game playoff, with two or three wins securing the Wild Card outright. If the Braves take one of three from the Phillies, St. Louis will need to win two for a play-in game or sweep Houston to earn a berth outright. If the Braves take two from Philly, the Cardinals need to sweep Houston to force the play-in. If the Braves sweep Philadelphia, the Cardinals are out of luck.

With that, there's still the race for second place in the National League that will give Milwaukee or Arizona home field in the NLDS. Both of those teams have to be rooting for the Cardinals (and Phillies) because if the Braves do make the playoffs, the loser of the second-place race will not only get a road series to start the playoffs, but they'll get it against Philadelphia. If the Cardinals make the playoffs, they'd get the Phillies in the first round, setting up the Brewers and D'Backs in the first round.

Who would the Phillies most want to play in the first round? They are 4-3 against the Brewers, including taking three of four in Milwaukee earlier this month, back when games still mattered. The Phillies are 3-3 against the D'Backs and 3-6 against the Cardinals that includes dropping three of four at home just last week. Granted, that was in the process of clinching, but still, they tried to win those games. Mostly.

So, don't the Phillies want the Braves to make the playoffs, if only to avoid playing a red-hot St. Louis team in the first round? Baseball karma and all of that accounted for, I'm not suggesting the Phillies tank these last three games on purpose, but, based on their record against all potential opponents (9-6 against the Braves heading into this series), the Cardinals look like the last team the Phillies want to play.

AMERICAN LEAGUE

Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe wrote that Jacoby Ellsbury may have locked up the AL MVP with his 14^th-inning, three-run homer against the Yankees in Game 2 of Sunday's doubleheader:

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With his team’s back against the wall, at the low point of their season, Ellsbury resuscitated his team. The All-Star center fielder belted a three-run homer in the 14th inning to give the Sox a 7-4 win and a split of yesterday’s doubleheader. Ellsbury, who became the first 30-30 man in Sox history when he homered in Game 1, has 31 homers and 103 RBI to go along with a .322 average and a .928 OPS. If he was on the fringes of the American League MVP voting before this moment, he’s smack dab in the middle of it now.

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Certainly the Red Sox have been floundering, having squandered a 6.5-game lead in the Wild Card race in less than three weeks. Since September 9, the Sox are 4-12 in their last 16 games, all in the AL East division. If you go back one more series when the Sox lost three of four to the Blue Jays, Boston is 5-15 in its last 20 games, all within the division. Cafardo is right: this was the low point of the season for Boston, and that includes starting the year 0-6 and 2-12, something that has clearly come back to haunt them now.

Whether Ellsbury had his MVP moment or not, all Boston's win over the Yankees Sunday night did was keep them one game ahead of Tampa with three left to play. Boston gets Baltimore for three games to end the season. While the Red Sox are 9-6 against the O's this year, they're 1-3 this month…and those games were in Fenway.

Unlike in the National League, the AL Wild Card participant doesn't really matter to the first-place Yankees, unless the Red Sox and Rays get swept and the Angels sweep Texas. That would create a one-game playoff between the Sox and the Halos to determine the Wild Card (the Rays winning one of three would actually create a three-team tie and absolute chaos). Strange things have happened in the last few weeks of the season, but that would be the strangest of them all.

The Yankees still have a lot up in the air, however. Playing three against the Rays in Tampa, New York can guarantee the Rays miss the playoffs by sweeping them. Even winning two of three would guarantee an extra game for Tampa at best.

Much like Philly and Atlanta, one would think the Yankees would much rather see Boston in the playoffs. Not that either the Red Sox or Rays are playing like they can get past Texas, who currently holds the second spot in the American League standings after winning eight of their last 10, or Detroit, which has fallen to third in the AL but still look like a better team (and by team, that basically means Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera and 23 other guys) than either AL East squad.

Just like the Phillies, the Yankees wish they could face the Wild Card team in the first round, as either Texas or Detroit could create an enormous problem for them in the ALDS.This year, the Wild Card rule could severely punish teams with the two best records in baseball just because teams in their division were good enough to sneak into the playoffs as well.

IT'S WILD, THAT'S FOR SURE

Regardless of who wins either Wild Card slot, it's clear that the "no way in heck this will ever happen" has, in fact, happened. Two teams with seemingly insurmountable leads tanked down the stretch and are now holding on for dear life to make the playoffs. It's exactly the kind of juice baseball needed, and it's making the last weekend of the regular season matter a whole lot again.