No celebrations on Saturday leads us to wild Sunday — a look at the scenarios
Those rooting for chaos in baseball’s final weekend are witnessing all of their dreams coming true heading into Sunday. While three teams had an opportunity to clinch either a division championship or a wild-card spot on Saturday. In the name of said chaos, all three failed to cross the finish line, setting up what could be and likely will be a wild final day in baseball’s regular season.
The most notable situation surrounds the one postseason spot that has yet to be claimed — the second AL wild card. On both Friday and Saturday night in Texas, the A’s needed just a victory to punch their ticket to the AL wild-card game, yet they were unable to get the job done, falling 2-1 and 5-4 respectively against the worst team record wise in the AL. That left the door open slightly for the Seattle Mariners, and with two wins over the Angels, they’re just one back with one game to play.
The St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers are already in, but still haven’t clinched their respective divisions, leaving open the possibility they could each fall into their league’s wild-card game. Both teams missed on their opportunity to clinch Saturday as the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals also lost.
That leaves us with three races yet to be determined and six potentially meaningful games on Sunday afternoon. The scenarios themselves are all pretty straight forward, but they’re definitely ripe for chaos. Here’s a look at how they set up and what you’ll want to root for to get three tiebreaker games on Monday.
American League Wild-Card
• A’s clinch wild-card with win or Mariners loss.
• Mariners force tiebreaker with win AND A’s loss.
The tiebreaker game would be played on Monday at Safeco Field by virtue of Seattle winning the season series 10-9. The team that wins the wild-card would visit the No. 1 seed Los Angeles Angels in the ALDS beginning on Thursday.
American League Central
• Royals force a Monday tiebreaker with a win AND a Tigers loss.
The tiebreaker game would be played Monday at Comercia Park by virtue of Detroit winning the season series 13-6. The division winner will visit the Baltimore Orioles in the ALDS. The wild-card winner will host either the Oakland A’s or Seattle Mariners in Tuesday’s wild-card game.
National League Central
• Cardinals win the division with a win or a Pirates loss.
• Pirates force a Monday tiebreaker with a win AND a Cardinals loss.
The tiebreaker would be held Monday at Busch Stadium by virtue of St. Louis winning the series season 11-8. The division winner will visit the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS. The wild-card winner will host the San Francisco Giants in Wednesday’s wild-card game.
Again, the scenarios are pretty easy to follow, which should allow us to enjoy any chaos even more.
Another interesting angle is how the pitching matchups are setting up for each game on Sunday. Obviously, it will set up more favorably for some teams than others, but should the favorites lose it could lead to a mess for them on Monday and beyond.
• Oakland: Sonny Gray (13-10, 3.21 ERA) @ Texas: Nick Martínez (5-11, 4.61 ERA), 3:05 PM ET
Derek Holland, who was scratched from Saturday’s start with a migraine, could pitch for Texas if he’s feeling better.
• Los Angeles: Cory Rasmus (3-1, 2.38 ERA) @ Seattle: Félix Hernández (14-6, 2.18 ERA) 4:10 PM ET
Hernandez will be on full rest and the Angels might not be too interested with nothing to gain. Then again, making sure Hernandez is out of the postseason might be enough incentive.
• Minnesota: Kyle Gibson (13-11, 4.50 ERA) @ Detroit: David Price (14-12, 3.36 ERA) 1:08 PM ET
This is what Detroit brought David Price in for. This pressure packed start is just coming one week early.
• Kansas City: Yordano Ventura (14-10, 3.07 ERA) @ Chicago: Chris Bassitt (1-1, 3.65 ERA) 2:10 PM ET
Kansas City’s rookie will make the biggest start of his young career. He’s pitched at least six innings and allowed three or fewer runs in each of his last 11 starts.
• St. Louis: Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38 ERA) @ Arizona: Josh Collmenter (11-8, 3.57 ERA) 4:10 PM ET
Wainwright was going to pitch anyway. He just might be needed for a full afternoon.
• Pittsburgh: Gerrit Cole (11-5, 3.78 ERA) @ Cincinnati: Johnny Cueto (19-9, 2.29 ERA) 1:10 PM ET
This one could be a real beauty. Just imagine Cueto helping St. Louis get into the postseason.
It could happen, and we can’t wait to see if it does.
Let the madness begin.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
