Sep 23, 2024, 07:00 AM ET
The final week of the 2024 MLB regular season has arrived — and there is no shortage of drama left.
The race for the final two National League playoff spots is coming down to the wire, with the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves set to begin a three-game showdown Tuesday night. After becoming the first member of the 50/50 club with one of MLB’s all-time greatest performances, Shohei Ohtani has six more games to add to his historic totals.
Which other series and individual accomplishments should you be watching during baseball’s sprint to the finish? Our MLB experts identify the biggest things to watch as the season comes to its thrilling conclusion.
The Mets-Braves series we’ve all been circling starts Tuesday. Who is going to win it and why?
Jeff Passan: We were here not long ago. It was 2022. Mets-Braves. Games 156-158. Atlanta swept the series and won the division, and the Mets got bounced in the wild-card round. This is different. The Braves still might be the most talented squad in baseball, but injuries have absolutely ravaged them this season. The Mets have been the far-better-performing team. Since June 3, New York is 62-34 — the best record in MLB — and Atlanta is barely a .500 team. The Mets know that with a series win they can wrap up the wild card. And that’s what they’ll do.
Jesse Rogers: Atlanta is cooked, while the Mets have some postseason mojo going already. Does that answer your question? The fact that the Braves have lasted this long is a testament to the character of the organization. But the magic they felt in 2021 is now in the other dugout. The Mets take the series and secure a wild-card spot as well.
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David Schoenfield: Well, I’m not betting against Chris Sale: The Braves have won the past eight games he has started. Logic dictates the two teams split the other two games so that gives the series to Atlanta. And considering the two teams have split the season series so far, that would give the tiebreaker edge to the Braves if they end up with the same final record as New York.
Alden Gonzalez: For as hurt and as flawed as the Braves have been this season, we can still identify one clear strength: starting pitching. And so I’m betting on the trio of Spencer Schwellenbach, Chris Sale and Max Fried — not to mention a frantic home crowd — being enough to take two of three, giving Atlanta the tiebreaker and putting it a game back heading into the final weekend. One problem: The Braves will end the regular season playing against a Kansas City Royals team that will probably still be fighting for a wild-card spot. The Mets will play a Milwaukee Brewers team that has already locked up its division and will be mostly resting for October.
Which other series are you most excited to watch over the final week?
Passan: There are so many good ones. Orioles-Yankees. Padres-Dodgers. Mets-Brewers. Royals-Braves. But give me the Seattle Mariners at Houston Astros. Seattle has hung around on the periphery of the wild-card race enough to potentially make things interesting. At one point this season, it led the American League West by 10 games. Barring an epic collapse, Houston will win the division — but a sweep by the Mariners could put them in position to salvage a wild-card spot. Regardless of outcome, this is a dream series for fans of starting pitching. Bryce Miller vs. Hunter Brown, Logan Gilbert vs. Framber Valdez and George Kirby vs. Yusei Kikuchi. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.
Rogers: Well, it would be quite fun if the Chicago White Sox could somehow avoid setting the record for the most losses in a single season by winning games against the Detroit Tigers this coming weekend — while also preventing the Tigers from making the postseason. If the opposite happens and Detroit sweeps, it will have gone 12-1 against the White Sox — the same record the Royals and Minnesota Twins have against the Sox this season. Chicago’s futility kept the entire AL Central in the playoff race, impacting the playoff chances of other AL teams such as the Boston Red Sox and Mariners. Alas, the White Sox are just one loss away from a new record — but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t spoil things for the Tigers this weekend.
Schoenfield: The Los Angeles Dodgers host the San Diego Padres to begin the week, and if the Padres can sweep the Dodgers, that will make the final weekend very interesting in the NL West, with the Dodgers at Colorado and the Padres at Arizona. So, advantage L.A. The season-ending series between the Royals and Braves also looms large, with the Royals suddenly seeing their miracle season in jeopardy and Atlanta scrambling to avoid missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
Gonzalez: Royals-Braves has a chance to be high drama heading into the regular season’s final three days. The Royals have only a one-game cushion on the Twins — while tied with the Tigers — for a wild-card spot in the AL (they hold the tiebreaker over the Tigers but not the Twins). The Braves are one game back in the NL. There is nothing more fun than a final series with high stakes, and that’s exactly what could play out with these two teams beginning Friday.
Now that Shohei Ohtani has already eclipsed the 50/50 mark, what will his final home run and stolen base totals be?
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Passan: Let’s try 56 home runs and 58 stolen bases. When Ohtani goes on a heater like this, he can pile up numbers in bunches. Every time he’s on via a walk or hit, he should run — carefully, of course, with the postseason around the corner, but with intent, knowing he’s probably never again going to have the bandwidth to pitch, hit and swipe bags. So if all we have left is a week of Ohtani, stolen base maestro, the denouement should be representative of the rest of his incredible season.
Rogers: I’ll make a very unscientific guess and say he slows down a little on the bases as he preps for the postseason. An injury now would be devastating. But he’ll hit two more home runs and still swipe three additional bases — but no more than that. So 55/58 is my prediction.
Schoenfield: I, too, thought he would slow down on the bases after getting to 50, but nope. And considering he might hit, I don’t know, half a dozen home runs in the final series in Colorado, I’m tempted to say 60/60. But I’ll go with 56 home runs and 60 stolen bases.
Gonzalez: My guess — given that the Dodgers will probably earn a bye and will certainly do everything they can to keep their players fresh heading into the division series, given what happened these past two years — is that Ohtani will play every remaining game. If he does, he’ll play three games against a Padres team that does a very good job preventing stolen bases and three games in the thin air of Colorado, a playpen for the game’s best power hitters. So let’s go with four more homers and two more steals to make him 57/57. Side note: If you don’t think he’s eyeing the home run race with Aaron Judge, you haven’t been paying close enough attention to Ohtani’s career.
Which other individual player achievement are you watching most closely this week?
Passan: Can Judge backdoor the Triple Crown? He is going to win the AL home run crown. He is going to win the AL RBI crown — and will almost certainly be the first hitter in 15 years with at least 140 RBIs. Batting average is the potential bugaboo. He’s currently 11 points behind Bobby Witt Jr. — and trails Vladimir Guerrero Jr. as well. Judge is the AL MVP regardless of whether he can pull off this particular feat, but doing so would only add to the greatness of an already all-time season.
Rogers: Call me old school — or just old — but is the NL really going to have only one batter hit .300 or better? After all the rule changes, including eliminating the shift and introducing a pitch clock so that pitchers throw quicker, MLB still has a hitting problem. If Marcell Ozuna (.306) drops below .300 and Trea Turner (.298) doesn’t jump above it, it’ll leave Padres star Luis Arraez as the lone .300 hitter in the NL. Ugh.
Schoenfield: Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal are both closing in on the pitching Triple Crown — wins, ERA and strikeouts, last accomplished in a full season in 2011, when Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw both did it (Shane Bieber did it in the shortened 2020 season). The strikeout races are close: Sale leads Dylan Cease by five, and Skubal leads Cole Ragans by four. That would be fun. But let me just go back to Ohtani here for a minute: He has 383 total bases, so he has a great shot at 400. The last players to reach 400 did so in 2001, and the last player outside of the 1997-2001 PED window was Jim Rice in 1978.
Gonzalez: I’ll cheat a little and say there are actually three players I’m watching closely heading into the final week: Jackson Merrill, Jackson Chourio and Paul Skenes. Yep, the NL Rookie of the Year race is still that close. Chourio might be a distant third at this point, but given he’s a 20-year-old who has helped carry a Brewers offense that has no business being this good, he’ll probably get some love from the voters regardless. Merrill and Skenes, meanwhile, could come down to the final days.
The Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies, Brewers and Guardians have all clinched playoff spots, but what are you looking for in their last week of regular-season games?
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Passan: I want to know how teams will line up their postseason rotations. Beyond Gerrit Cole, whom does New York go with in Games 2-4 of the division series? Zack Wheeler is clearly the Phillies’ No. 1. How does manager Rob Thomson order Aaron Nola, Cristopher Sanchez (whose home-road splits are profoundly different) and Ranger Suarez? After Freddy Peralta, do the Brewers go with Tobias Myers ahead of Frankie Montas and Colin Rea — and if they’re in a three-game wild-card series, which of those three doesn’t get a start? Tanner Bibee will start Game 1 for Cleveland. Beyond that, Ben Lively has been the most consistent all year, Gavin Williams has the best stuff, Matt Boyd has the best peripherals and Joey Cantillo has performed the best over the past two weeks.
Rogers: In a year of immense parity, getting a bye and home-field advantage seems more paramount than ever. Any edge could make the difference in October. All of that will be determined this week. How these teams navigate those desires — combined with keeping their pitchers healthy and ready for the following week — will be interesting to watch.
Schoenfield: Of those teams, the Dodgers are the most interesting here: Who the heck is going to be in the playoff rotation after Jack Flaherty and Yoshinobu Yamamoto? Manager Dave Roberts is just begging to see something from Walker Buehler or Landon Knack. But I think that’s why it’s most important for the Dodgers to avoid the wild-card series: They need one of their top starters ready to go in Game 1 of the division series and will appreciate having a fresh bullpen for that series as well.
Gonzalez: It’s not just the starting-pitching depth that’s a concern for the Dodgers — the two guys they thought they could count on, Flaherty and Yamamoto, haven’t been all that good lately. Flaherty has given up a combined seven runs on 10 hits and six walks in nine innings against the Braves and Miami Marlins his past two times out. Yamamoto, meanwhile, didn’t make it into the fourth inning against the lowly Colorado Rockies on Sunday, recording nine outs and allowing eight baserunners. They’ll each have one more turn through the rotation before things get real.
Which player from a non-playoff team are you making sure to watch one more time before the season ends?
Passan: Over the past month, Oakland Athletics outfielder Lawrence Butler has been one of the five best hitters in baseball. Since the All-Star break, he has been one of the top 10. It’s appalling that fans in Oakland won’t get to watch him blossom with Brent Rooker, JJ Bleday, Jacob Wilson, Zack Gelof, Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom and the soon-to-arrive Nick Kurtz and Henry Bolte. That’s got a chance to be a winning core, and as Oakland celebrates the A’s while lamenting their owner this week, it would be nice for Butler to send the fans off with good memories.
Rogers: Selfishly, Kyle Hendricks of the Chicago Cubs. After 11 seasons in the majors, he’s likely to make his last start with the only big league team he has known. That should come this weekend against the Cincinnati Reds — probably Saturday — and then Hendricks will become a free agent for the first time in his career. There might be people in the league who are his equal when it comes to kindness and respect for fans, media and the game itself, but it would be hard to find a player who surpasses him in any of those areas. And when he leaves, the Cubs will not have any players remaining from their 2016 championship team.
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Schoenfield: Skenes started on Sunday and lowered his ERA to 1.99, and he’s going to get one final start to cap off his remarkable rookie season. But the one game I know I’ll check in on will be the Athletics’ home finale on Thursday afternoon. Fans in Oakland deserved better than this ending after so many years of rich baseball history and epic moments — including four World Series titles — so let’s hope the A’s deliver one last win in Oakland.
Gonzalez: Julio Rodriguez has had mostly a miserable season for a Mariners team that is merely on the fringes of contention heading into the final week — but he’s finally starting to turn it on, OPS’ing 1.294 and hitting five home runs over his past nine games. Perhaps it’s too late to sneak the Mariners into the playoffs, but when Rodriguez is right, he’s as good as anyone. We’ve missed seeing it.
