MLB season’s final weekend: Playoff berths and seedings, Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge pursuits, more

October is only a few days away, meaning that Major League Baseball’s postseason is nearing its arrival. With the exception of the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves, who will play a doubleheader on Monday after having their plans disrupted by Hurricane Helene, every club will wrap up their regular season schedule on Sunday.

There may be only three days left on the calendar for most of MLB, but that doesn’t mean everything has been decided. Far from it, in fact. 

With that in mind, we here at CBS Sports wanted to provide a handy guide to what’s at stake entering Friday’s slate of games. Below, you’ll find nine of the most important and unresolved dynamics, ranging from playoff berths and seeding to individual pursuits of noteworthy accomplishments — all compiled with the intent to help you prioritize which games merit your attention over the next three days.

Let’s get to it.

1. Playoff berths

Coming into Friday, eight of the 12 playoff berths have been clinched. The New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Guardians, Houston Astros have punched their tickets in the American League; the Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres have done the same in the National League.

Two more teams could secure their places on Friday: the Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers would gain entrance with either a victory or a Minnesota Twins loss against the Baltimore Orioles. Those clinches would complete the AL side of the bracket.

The NL side will take longer to resolve itself. The Mets and Arizona Diamondbacks entered Friday tied for the second and third slots, with the Braves sitting a game back. As noted in the introduction, the Mets and Braves will play a doubleheader on Monday. 

2. Seed positioning 

Of course, there’s more to the playoff bracket than merely which teams are involved. There’s also the matter of seeding, which is particularly important at the tiptop of the leagues since it determines who would have home-field advantage should the top seeds advance to the League Championship Series.

The AL’s top seed could be locked up as early as Friday night. The Yankees need to win against the Pittsburgh Pirates and have the Guardians lose to the Astros to secure the No. 1 spot. Should only one of those criteria be met on Friday night, the Yankees would be in position to clinch the top spot on Saturday.

The NL’s top seed cannot be decided on Friday, though the Dodgers will enter with a one-game lead over the Phillies. The Phillies possess the tiebreaker by virtue of winning the season series, suggesting the race could go down to the wire.

3. White Sox on the brink of history

Last Sunday, the Chicago White Sox tied MLB’s modern single-season record for losses, dropping their 120th game of the year. It seemed certain then that the White Sox would lose another game, their 121st, over the coming days and overtake the expansion 1962 New York Mets for the worst season in modern MLB history.

The White Sox, to their credit, have thus far staved off loss No. 121, sweeping a three-game set from the Los Angeles Angels to improve their mark to 39-120. The White Sox will close out the year with three games against the Tigers. 

The conditions would not seem favorable for another White Sox sweep: not only are the Tigers 9-1 against the White Sox this season, but, as noted above, they have something left to play for in the form of a playoff berth.

4. Ohtani triple crown watch

Sure, Shohei Ohtani has already recorded a 50-50 season. And yes, he’s cleared 400 total bases. But, believe it or not, he just might have another historic feat in him before the playoffs begin: securing the first NL triple crown since Joe Medwick in 1937.

Rather, Ohtani will head into the Dodgers’ season-concluding series against the Colorado Rockies with a chance to win the NL’s triple crown. 

Here’s a look at where Ohtani stands in the three relevant categories as of Friday morning:

• Batting average: .305, third in the NL, trails by .007 points
• Home runs: 53, leads the NL by 14
• Runs batted in: 126, leads the NL by 15

It’s fair to think that Ohtani will end the season leading the NL in both home runs and runs batted in. Can he overtake both Luis Arraez and Marcell Ozuna in batting average? We’ll find out. 

5. Judge chases 60 home runs

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge has recovered from a (relative) home-run slump by teeing off in five consecutive games. He’s now up to 58 home runs on the season, making it plausible that he clears 60 for the second time in his big-league career.

Judge, whose Yankees will host the Pirates for three games this weekend, homered 62 times during the 2022 season en route to establishing new franchise and AL single-season records. It seems unlikely (though not completely impossible) that he ties his own record. A more realistic goal, however, is that he homers twice to get to 60.

Should Judge accomplish that feat, he’ll become just the third player in history to have hit 60 or more home runs in two separate seasons. The others? Sammy Sosa (three) and Mark McGwire (two).

6. Ramírez looks to join 40-40 club

Ohtani’s forming of the 50-50 club shouldn’t obscure that Guardians third baseman José Ramírez is on the cusp of becoming the seventh player to ever hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season. 

Ramírez enters Friday’s series-opening contest against the Astros needing just two home runs to earn membership. He’s at 38 home runs and 40 stolen bases.

The other members of the 40-40 club are Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr., Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, and Jose Canseco.

7. Arraez eyes third consecutive batting title, history

We noted that the only thing separating Ohtani from the NL triple crown is his third-place batting average. The current leader is a familiar one, as Padres DH Luis Arraez is attempting to take home his third consecutive batting title.

Arraez, who is hitting .312, will enter play on Friday with a two-point edge over Marcell Ozuna and a seven-point advantage over Ohtani. Those are the only three qualified NL players with averages exceeding .300.

As MLB.com observed earlier this year, Arraez would become the first player in history to win three batting titles in three years with three different teams. Arraez did it with the Twins in 2022, the Marlins last year, and potentially the Padres this year. 

8. Sale and Skubal chasing triple crown

Ohtani isn’t the only player chasing a triple crown — he is, however, the only batter doing it. Both Atlanta’s Chris Sale and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal are positioned to win their league’s pitching triple crowns — that is, for reference, wins, ERA, and strikeouts.

Sale and Skubal are certain to lead their respective leagues in wins and ERA. Sale would seem to have a safer lead in strikeouts: he’s one up over Dylan Cease (who made his final regular start a few days back) and 12 up over Zack Wheeler. Skubal, meanwhile, has five more strikeouts than Royals lefty Cole Ragans.

Both Skubal and Ragans are scheduled to start on Sunday. It’s unclear if those appearances will happen as planned, for reasons we’ll cover in the next subheading.

Shane Bieber technically won the AL triple crown during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. The last full-season triple crown winners both occurred in 2011: Justin Verlander in the AL, Clayton Kershaw in the NL.

9. Rotation alignment

We promise more on Skubal and Ragans, here it is. 

It would behoove the Tigers and the Royals to clinch playoff berths on Friday, or even Saturday. Whatever it would take for them to be able to pivot from starting those lefties on Sunday — that way, they can be deployed optimally during the wild-card round.

If either/both have to take the ball on Sunday, then their teams will face a dilemma during the first round: either start them in Game 3 on short rest, or risk them not making a single playoff start. Neither is an ideal scenario.