The Baseball Playoff Picture At The Moment

With only six days left in the baseball season - counting today - there're still a surprising number of unknowns regarding the postseason.

In the American League, the four playoff entrants are all but guaranteed to be:

• Boston
• Cleveland
• LA Angels
• NY Yankees

The only other AL team with any chance, going into today's play, is the Detroit Tigers, who are 5.5 games behind the Yankees for the Wildcard spot. For them to make the postseason, they'd need to win all five of their remaining games, and have the Yankees tank all six of theirs, in which case I think the two teams would hold a one-game playoff to decide the Wildcard. Highly unlikely scenario, but mathematically possible, although New York is already up 5-0 on Tampa Bay tonight. So Detroit could be eliminated within another hour or so.

However, there's still a chance that Boston and New York could swap places (AL East Division winner and Wildcard entrant) because the Yankees are only 2 games back, with six to go. Also unclear is how each of the AL Division winners will finish relative to each other, since all three of them come into play today with exactly 92 wins! How tight is that? As everyone knows, the Division winner with the best record draws the Wildcard team in the first round, unless both teams are from the same division, in which case the Division winner with the 2nd best record hosts the Wildcard team to begin the playoffs. So we know Boston and New York won't play each other to start (same division) but every other combination is still possible! If you're a scout for one of those teams, trying to prepare for the postseason, you're stuck checking out all three of them!

The National League has a much greater amount of uncertainty at the moment. Not a single team there has clinched a playoff spot yet, and two of the three divisions still have 3 teams each in the race! New York Mets lead the East, but Philadelphia's only 2 games back, and Atlanta is 5 back, with everyone having six games to play (and Atl and Phil going head-to-head for three big encounters this week). In the West, Arizona's trying to fight off both San Diego (3 games back) and Colorado (4 games back), with each of them having a half dozen matches left. In the Central, Chicago has a slim 3 game lead on Milwaukee, again with six each to go.

And then there's the NL Wildcard, where the Phillies and Padres are deadlocked at the top, Colorado's only a single game back, Atlanta's 3 behind, and Colorado is hanging in there 5 game behind. Add in the dark horse Dodgers, also 5 games out of the Wildcard (but 8 behind Arizona and therefore out of the race for the NL West Division title) and you've got quite the log jam! Where all four teams are (essentially) set in the American League, over in the senior circuit there are still double that many teasing their fans, despite the fact that half of them will be watching the playoffs on TV. I won't even attempt to figure out who might be playing whom in the NL postseason's first round, with that many variables still in play!

What a great time it is to be a baseball fan!