MLB playoff scenarios: NL wild card race coming down to the wire

PHOENIX − It’s fun, chaotic and nerve-racking but a complete nightmare for three traveling secretaries.

While the six division races are all decided along with the American League wild-card field, the National League wild-card race is still jumbled.

The San Diego Padres clinched the top wild-card berth and home-field advantage in the wild-card round with their 5-3 victory Friday night over the Arizona Diamondbacks, it leaves three teams vying for the final two spots.

And no one has the slightest idea who’s going to keep playing in October and who’s staying home.

The New York Mets (87-71), Atlanta (87-71) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (88-72), after 184 days of the regular season, are tied up with two days left.

Check that.

There are three days left.

Well, maybe.

It is so confusing that these teams don’t know how many games they have left to play, let alone have any idea where to tell their pilot to fly Monday.

The three teams have complete control of their destiny without needing to rely on anyone losing, well, with the exception of Arizona, the team with the most victories among the trio.

If either Atlanta or the Mets win their remaining four games, they’re in.

If Arizona wins their remaining two games against San Diego, they’re all but certain to be in, but it’s not fully guaranteed.

Let’s say the Mets win their next two games in Milwaukee, Atlanta wins their next two against Kansas City and Arizona wins their next two against the Padres, it guarantees only that Monday’s bizarre day will have a significant impact.

The Mets and Atlanta are scheduled to play a doubleheader at Truist Park in Atlanta, making up the postponed games this week because of Hurricane Helene, providing the games have playoff implications.

The only way the games wouldn’t be necessary is if the Diamondbacks lose their last two games and the Mets and Atlanta win their next two games. That would leave the D-backs on the outside looking in, two games back from both teams with New York and Atlanta each having the tiebreaker advantage over Arizona.

Now, if the D-backs win both games, they’ll be sitting pretty, but could be stopped outside the postseason pearly gates if Atlanta and the Mets split their doubleheader, giving all three teams a 90-72 record, with the D-backs losing the tiebreaker in a three-way tie.

Got all of that?

“I think it’s an opportunity to be involved in something weirder, goofier, unprecedented,” Atlanta catcher Sean Murphy told reporters Friday. “You know, I think a potential doubleheader before the playoffs is kind of fun. And, yeah, I think embracing it is the one thing you can do.”

The scenarios are so chaotic that even if the Diamondbacks have a postseason berth clinched Sunday, they’ve got to sit around Monday waiting to see the outcome of the New York-Atlanta games to know where they’re headed. If they win the second wild-card berth, they are headed to San Diego for a best-of-three series at Petco Park. If they win the third wild-card berth, they are headed to Milwaukee, playing a team they’ve just faced seven times in the last week.

The plan, the D-backs say, is to work out at Chase Field on Monday, watch the Mets-Atlanta games in the background, and hope to learn their destination sometime in the late afternoon with the playoffs starting Tuesday.

For Atlanta and New York, they’re just hoping they don’t have to play both games of the doubleheader Monday. If you win, you actually lose, with the surviving team left with a battered pitching staff before the wild-card series.

That is, unless you’re Atlanta, which hasn’t pitched Cy Young favorite Chris Sale in nine days. They claim they’re going to save him for an elimination game, with hopes he may be not have to pitch until Game 1 of the wild-card series. Either that, or they believe he’s fatigued, with his velocity down 4-mph in his last start.

Hey, why not have a little espionage to go with the drama, while wondering just how much effort the Padres will give to beat the Diamondbacks, and the same with the Brewers to beat the Mets and the Royals to beat Atlanta.

The Padres already have the top wild-card seed and have nothing to gain beating Arizona. The Royals clinched a playoff berth Friday, knowing they’ll open up against either Baltimore or Houston. And the Brewers are locked in as the third division winner, and can’t change their outcome.

“We’ll still get after it these next two days,’’ Padres manager Mike Shildt said in his office Friday night. “These games matter, so we want to be reflective of the integrity of the whole race.

“But we also want to make sure we’re taken care of, and we’ll set up our pitching for Tuesday.

This means the Padres will skip Michael King for Sunday’s game, making him a potential option to start in the wild-card series.

They could also rest Luis Arraez, who has been dealing with knee and thumb injuries, but since he’s vying for his third consecutive batting title, with Shohei Ohtani creeping up on him, he insists he’ll play.

The Diamondbacks, who have lost four of their last five games, don’t have that luxury. Manager Torey Lovullo says he doesn’t plan to use ace Zac Gallen on Sunday, but if the situation is dire, all hands are on deck.

“We're going to be ready to go,’’ Lovullo said. “We know what we're fighting for. A lot of people are asking me certain questions about the stability of our team. ‘Are we OK?’ We're great. …

“I can’t explain it. Sometimes, baseball’s a crazy game. We didn’t get the victory, but we sure as hell are going to do all we can to get one [Saturday].’’

If the Diamondbacks fare well, the Mets could wind up being the ones on the outside looking in. They lost to Milwaukee, 8-4, with their ace Sean Manaea on the mound, giving up a grand slam in the first inning.

“We’ve been through a lot this year,’’ Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters, “and this is nothing different.’’

The hottest team among the trio is Atlanta, which has won six of its last seven games, including a 3-0 victory over Kansas City with Max Fried pitching 8 ⅔ dominant innings, yielding just three hits while striking out nine.

“We had to win this game and I just wanted to make sure I left everything out there,” Fried told reporters. “This was a big game. We needed to win and we need to win every single game the rest of the year. This is what we play for, meaningful baseball in September.’’

While the wild-card picture looks awfully murky, Fried remains convinced they’ll be back playing in October, just like ol’ times.

“We’ve got a really great group in there that believes and is extremely talented,’’ he said. “I’m confident we’re going to be winning a lot of games and getting to the playoffs.”

It leaves one question.

Just who in the world will be that other wild-card team?

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NL wild card race coming down to the wire