We are at the quarter pole of the baseball season, the proper time for people to remember why they play all these games in April, May, June, and July. No, this is not Chicago White Sox-related fun with numbers. There will be plenty of time for that later.
This is the moment when we begin to learn which of the 10 or so wild card semi-contenders are actually going to inflict themselves upon the nation in October. The choices are as meh-tastic as ever, even considering that this format just last year gave us both the Arizona Diamondbacks in the World Series and the Miami Marlins scoring two runs in two postseason games.
In other words, these are teams you shouldn’t really feel compelled to pay attention to, but which may yet give you valuable beer-sodden insights into the postseason at some point down the line. There is a small chance that you will find one of these teams fascinating; that is your business, and you should keep it to yourself. There is a much larger chance that you will find them as stultifyingly dull as you do now, because frankly they are. That's what sixth place will get you. Also fourth and fifth. Hey, the more people you invite into the house, the greater the chance that some of your spoons will go missing.
So, in order of their capacity to entertain and sustain, according to league membership:
EITHER THE ORIOLES OR THE YANKEES
One of these two teams is not going to win the American League East, and the decisive factor may be their series against each other at Estadio de la Yanquis in the last week of the regular season. The Orioles are the better team on paper and we say that because of their superior gaggle of birth names, including Adley, Gunnar, Colton, Cedric, Heston, Keegan, Coby, Corbin, Cionel, and Seranthony. They are the Minnesota High School All-State Hockey team grown to adulthood. They are, however, burdened by having the wrong Soto (Gregory rather than Juan), so there's that.
As for the rest of it, the Orioles and Yankees are by far the homerest-hitting teams in the game, if only Aaron Boone could figure out how to bat Aaron Judge and the right Soto (Juan) more than once per time through the order. They will powerbomb whoever they play for as long as they're playing, though that isn't a guarantee of a ring. The 2012 Giants won the World Series despite hitting fewer homers that year in 162 games than the Dodgers did during the 60-game COVID season.
Here's where we remind you how disproportionately cute the wild card format gets: the team that loses the division will have to play in the wild card round, and will either have to play at Houston, which is always a punishment just because it's Houston, or at Seattle, which is always a pain in the ass for East Coast teams because it is located in Seattle. That said, the Mariners and Astros are both deeply and profoundly ordinary, and neither the O's nor Y's will have an excuse if they fail, even if their two closers (Craig Kimbrel and Clay Holmes) have 15 blown saves between them. So look at the bright side: One of these two fan bases is going to be mightily vexed when it doesn't win the division and the other will be mightily vexed when they still don't make it to the World Series. A win-win for the rest of us.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
They're both postseason shoo-ins, and it almost doesn't matter who finishes first if you're not burdened by a rooting interest. But this only works if they meet in the LCS and someone loses horribly. Maybe on a pitch clock violation. There's a level of comfort in that which will make even Halloween and other people's children leaning on your doorbell for hours endurable.
CLEVELAND
You wouldn't think of the Guardians and their sixth-grader-who-doesn't-play-well-with-others logo as a wild card team, but their once-vast lead in the AL Central has dwindled to within a game and a half as recently as this weekend, so the 'Ians could still end up here if their ordinary starting rotation exhausts its elite bullpen.
We still largely believe that Cleveland is better than either Minnesota or Kansas City and if they do fall to the wild card, they will absolutely deserve to lose in two games. But let's play our game here anyway. You don't really need to pay much attention to anything other than José Ramirez, who is the game's best third baseman; first baseman Josh Naylor, who hits homers and impersonates soda machines in his spare time; and Steven Kwan, who is expertly irritating at several things simultaneously. But there's something slightly off-putting about a rotation whose prime contributors are named Ben Lively and Tanner Bibee, let alone who actually are Ben Lively and Tanner Bibee. The fact that Cleveland lost its last two World Series to Florida and the Cubs makes a sensible person feel like its current 76-year title drought should be enacted into future law.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
The Guardians are better than our general opinion of them, but it's hard to see them beating either one of the above teams with their much more modest hitting. Emmanuel Clase cannot save games that the Guardians do not lead. That's some serious inside ball right there.
THE TWINS AND ROYALS
Inseparable for much of the second half, and in all honesty they may as well be the same team. Minnesota is remarkably light on .204 hitters who normally hit .260, but if they can't guarantee Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, and Carlos Correa will play in October, their stay will be Twins-level short, both because they are the Twins and that's what they do and because they will be without the heart of their offense. Their starting pitching is a plus by the metrics but it's hard to imagine it overwhelming either Baltimore or New York, or even Bobby Witt, Jr. Their best arm is in fact closer Jhoan Duran, who throws a billion miles an hour, and their best choice to get a clutch strikeout is Griffin Jax, all of which is to say that the Twins come by their wild card-level anonymity honestly. If there is a quintessential wild card team in every sport, the Twins are MLB’s.
Which brings us to the Royals, a team whose history would crawl over hot glass shards to be thought of as a quintessentially wild-cardy. They have no winning seasons since the World Series year of 2015, only two playoff appearances since their previous World Series win in 1985, and the worst winning percentage in baseball over that stretch. This year’s model is much improved on their recent norms, and while the lineup shrieks average in every way, they are also undeniably 11 games over .500 largely on the strength of the ungodly Witt, who would be the league MVP if Aaron Judge defected to Bulgaria. Their big offseason moves were putting Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha atop the rotation and somehow strengthening holdovers Cole Ragans and Brady Singer, but the bullpen is shambolic even by typical Royals standards. The only teams with poorer bullpens than Kansas City's are those of the Rockies and White Sox, and if you need further elucidation there, you stopped reading paragraphs ago when you realized the name J.J. McCarthy would not appear in this post. The Royals are so just happy to be here that they may pour champagne on each other after they lose.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
The Twins are better than the Royals and not as good as the Guardians, so that should be easy to figure out. The problem is that none of them feel trustworthy. They are ultimately just the Twins and Royals, and their essential AL Central pedigree condemns them both equally.
THE ASTROS AND MARINERS
Houston used to Be Somebody. More specifically, they were “a pack of first rate scoundrels who brought back the concept of brazen cheating.” Before that happened, nobody much noticed the Astros one way or another; since, they give off a visceral reaction that even Dusty Baker's incandescent affability and a World Series could not obscure. The Astros are trying to do this thing without outfielder Kyle Tucker, which is one of the reasons their offense is such a grilled cheese sandwich—acceptable under any circumstances and impossible to ruin, but nothing to brag about either. Their rotation is their strength, and presumably will improve when Justin Verlander comes back from a two-month stay in neck jail. This could bump Spencer Arrighetti from his spot, but that's less of a tragedy since the names on the back of the jerseys were ruined Fanatics. A name that hooks around the numbers is always cooler than someone like, well, like "JAX." But the Astros will be overbilled as a division winner; they may not even be a postseason team if the Red Sox ever cure their chronic anal/cranial inversion.
That outcome would also depend on a surge from the Mariners, who are half a game behind Houston after cacking up a 10-game lead in mid-June. There are reasons to doubt such a surge, most notably that Seattle is positioned to be the worst hitting playoff team in a full season since the schedule went to 162 games in 1961; they may well become the first team to win a game 0-to-minus-1. Julio Rodriguez has completely disappeared after last year's sparkly emergence, and he had the team's highest batting average until the Mariners went out and pulled Randy Arozarena from his West Florida purgatory. Catcher Cal Raleigh hits homers because nobody else does, and his four intentional walks, which lead the team, are an interesting counterpoint to his 134 strikeouts, which are tenth most in the game. Nobody else in the lineup much matters. The pitching is everything, even if everyone's W-L hovers maddeningly around .500, even Comrade Xu's idol and our hometown native Bryan Woo. They stand no chance.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
If your rooting interest runs to either these teams, treasure all 54 outs of your postseason as though they were Oscar-winning films.
BOSTON
Imagine not being as good as either the Twins, Royals or Mariners. On the other hand, there is Rafael Devers. Let's just leave it there.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
They won't make it, but by the time Sawx fans find out, they'll already be demanding the Patriots rehire Bill Belichick.
The National League is more overtly hilarious. The Phillies and Brewers are already locks, while the Dodgers, Padres, and Diamondbacks will almost certainly make it in some order or other. The rest is corned beef hash from a can. Still, in the interest of thoroughness through padding, we'll do our damnedest to include your team. Unless your team is the Rockies, in which case hell is your summer home.
THE DODGERS, PADRES, AND DIAMONDBACKS
How the Dodgers are even here is a monument to their shame, though we suspect they will pull away again now that Mookie Betts has been raised from the slab. Los Angeles' problem is that they murder pitchers, most of them their own. The young starter River Ryan just became the latest Dodger to leave his arm in the overhead bin, and no team has used more pitchers (36 and counting) this year; it's arguably their fault for spitting at fate and starting a guy named Kyle Hurt back in April. That said, Mookie is the cure to all that ails any team, and if the Dodgers keep getting Ohtani'd and Teoscar'd as needed they'll be fine. There is also help in the bullpen from ex-Sox Michael Kopech, who cost the Dodgers three playing cards and a candy burrito, and is currently enjoying the single most predictable career renaissance in baseball history.
The Padres have been faking it without one of their pillars, outfielder Fernando Tatis The Younger; the other two, Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado, haven't been nearly as dynamic as a result, a recent push by Bogaerts notwithstanding. Their two most reliable hitters are the ones you would most expect, Jurickson Profar and Jackson Merrill, as long as what you expect is to stump some barflies at Tuesday night trivia. They hit fewer homers than the Mariners and barely more than the Rockies. They went out and got Luis Arraez when the Marlins announced they were actively seeking relegation to the International League, but they have also wasted a lot of the year waiting for Dylan Cease to scrape off the last of White Soxery and become the monster they thought he would be. With Tatis, they could be fearsome. Without him, they cannot escape . . .
. . . the Diamondbacks, recently the least likely World Series attendee in decades, and currently a team that has surprisingly not collapsed under the weight of owner Ken Kendrick's cheapjack ways. Ketel Marte is by far the best of MLB’s five Martes (José, Noelvi, Starling, and Yunior), but the team’s second best hitter is Joc Pederson, which just feels slightly stretched as a defining trait. The heart of their future aspirations, Corbin Carroll, has only recently stopped being terrible, but they took an effective flyer on veteran and Marlins survivor Josh Bell as a fill-in for injured first baseman Christian Walker, and Bell has improved his lot in life by almost as many games as Kopech and Eloy Jimenez did when they escaped the White Sox at the deadline. Arizona also got starter Merrill Kelly back after three months, which helps strengthen the rotation. They could actually do something in October the way they did a year ago, but we're damned if we know how. We do know it won't be because of their pitching.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
The Dodgers will pull away and perhaps even catch the Phillies, which when you read the next paragraph will be of considerable use to them. One of the other two will be the spoiler because there is always one; the last year the two top seeds reached the World Series was 2013. But we won't like it when it happens any more than we did last year.
THE BRAVES AND METS
There's a world in which neither of these decomposing heaps makes the postseason, but the alternatives are actually worse. The Braves grabbed a bunch of players from their glory days at the deadline because Ronald Acuna, Jr., and Ozzie Albies are currently up on blocks, and still they have spent most of the season slowly but surely losing contact with the Phillies even though the Phillies have lost 15 of their last 23 games. In other words, there is no reason to wait for the Braves to reassemble their once formidable shit, let alone to want them to.
Still, they're more appealing than Team Roth. The Mets started horribly, had a good April, a gruesome May, a very good June, a decent July and just got swept by the Mariners, 6-0, 4-0, and 12-1. Giving up a dozen to Cal Raleigh And The Funky Bunch is an indignity that should come with jail time. Their only true selling point is that you might prefer watching Francisco Lindor to Orlando Arcia, or Pete Alonso to Matt Olson. But you won't prefer it to watching an actual team. Fortunately for them, everyone behind them is a crashing bore.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
For both these teams to be eliminated early, but since we don't see spoiler tendencies in either San Diego or Arizona, it will have to be the survivor of this titanic struggle between teams you can't stand. It's just a matter of who you trust more in a big spot, Charlie Morton or Luis Severino. Oog.
THE GIANTS
Jesus on two sticks, why? They are currently making a slow but clear repudiation of their former strategy of signing quad-A players and veterans on the cheap to go full-in on a farm system that they have been touting to little effect for five years, and yet they are still in the mix. Blake Snell is suddenly a badass again, but the rest of the pitching is performing at Washington Nationals levels of efficiency, and their next big home run hitter will be the ghost of Willie Mays. They are a year away from being a year away, which is their ongoing story.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
They fail, and fans spend the winter relitigating the employment status of baseball ops chief Farhan Zaidi. The 49ers had better be good again.
THE REST OF THE NL CENTRAL
If ever a team with a losing record could manage the postseason it would be one of these nightmares. That they are packed together like decomposing pilchards in the lower half of the National League standings is fitting, because only one of them, Cincinnati, seems to have the capability to make a run; naturally, that is the one team that never does. The Cardinals' idea of trade deadline gambling included bringing in Erick Fedde and former Cardinal Tommy Pham (again, being freed from the White Sox is its own reward), but they are adhered to .500 like a crazed limpet. The Pirates' frantic attempts to clone Paul Skenes still look like Bailey Falter, and the Cubs have been a .450 team for two months, thus convincing us that they are a .450 team in reality. None of these four teams should be allowed even to entertain the fantasy of October, but we are trapped in a league that has more spots than legitimate candidates. It feels like Election Day.
WHAT THE GALACTIC PIXIES THINK WILL HAPPEN
Not this. A thousand times, not this. May their mathematical eliminations happen with uncommon swiftness. Unless it's Cincinnati. We'll watch crap baseball if Elly De La Cruz is attached to it. And that really should be our guiding principle in all things, no matter how grim—bad relationship, lousy boss, Trump speeches, economic peril, the start of the NFL season, you name it. Elly De La Cruz makes it all less awful. May he live forever.
