Copyright berkshireeagle
The Cleveland Guardians spent most of this year looking like a team that should think about next year. They were so definitively out of contention two months ago that when their all-star closer, Emmanuel Clase, was placed on leave amid an MLB investigation into baseball-related gambling, it hurt less because he could no longer pitch for them than because they could no longer trade him before the deadline as part of a sell-off. They trailed the American League Central-leading Detroit Tigers by so many games in July (15½) that they literally had no precedent to call upon for a comeback (the biggest ever overcome to win a division or league was 15 games, and it was overcome just months after World War I began). They trailed the Tigers by so many games in early September (10) that history offered no examples - pre or postwar - of what it could look like to recover so quickly. And yet, with three games left in the regular season, the Guardians are tied with those Tigers and possess the tiebreaker, within reach of the unlikeliest division title in MLB history after winning 17 of their past 20 games at exactly the right time. Their run could also end a postseason dynasty by pushing the Houston Astros, one game behind Cleveland and Detroit for the final AL wild-card spot, out of the postseason picture. It could also still fall just short. This is the beauty of this child’s game in a nutshell: Anyone who cares spends six months fighting to remain stoic to avoid drowning in the inevitable emotional waves. And then, in an instant, the levies must come down so the emotion can flood in, because nothing cures exhaustion quite like the prospect of making history. More specifically, this is the magic of baseball in this expanded wild-card era, when six teams per league make the postseason - when imperfection is fatal only when accompanied by a total loss of hope. Maybe the format dilutes the postseason field, as traditionalists suggest. But maybe, as elsewhere, inclusivity is not the enemy - with the next two days or so offered as evidence: In Cleveland and Cincinnati, in Houston and Boston and Detroit, in Phoenix and even in Queens, fans will be clinging to their seats, some hoping to stave off historic disappointment, some hoping for a miracle, with the final playoff spots in each league still left for the taking. No one understands the unique gravity of this final weekend like the Tigers, who politely - if reluctantly - opened the door for the Guardians to slide their way into contention. Last year at this time, they were the miracle darlings, the team with nothing to lose because they were not expected to win, and they rode a late-season comeback all the way to within one win of the American League Championship Series. This year, however, the Tigers collapsed, losing eight straight before a massive win against the Guardians on Thursday afternoon that ensured they would enter this final weekend tied for first in the AL Central instead of crossing their fingers that they could still salvage a wild-card spot as their only realistic path. They have utterly melted down, as only baseball teams can, with so much going wrong that normally unflappable ace Tarik Skubal found himself tossing a baseball through his legs like a long snapper and into right field a few nights ago as part of a catastrophic inning that helped the Guardians win the game that pulled them even with Detroit for the first time since early April. But the funny thing about meltdowns such as theirs is that they are seemingly unending and totally all-consuming - until they aren’t. That win Thursday afternoon could have settled them. That win Thursday afternoon could mean nothing at all. They will be facing another team with something to play for - the Boston Red Sox, who sit one game ahead of the Guardians and Tigers and have not yet clinched a wild-card berth - in three games to save their season. Skubal, the reigning Cy Young Award winner well on his way to another, will pitch Sunday’s finale if they need him. The Tigers are not unique in collapsing inward. The Red Sox have, at times, wondered whether they would be here so much so that their manager, Alex Cora, cautioned everyone to “stop talking about October” as recently as two weeks ago. The New York Yankees, who have clinched a playoff spot but enter this weekend tied with the Toronto Blue Jays atop the AL East in the only other division race that is still undecided, are consumed multiple times annually by cries for Manager Aaron Boone’s head or accusations of mediocrity. No team is immune to wondering whether they can make it to this weekend in playoff position at all. At least once a year, no matter how good a team is supposed to be or how good a player has been, no matter how much was spent on building a roster or how much someone was paid to be on it, they will wonder how they ever succeeded. This season, for example, tested Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts with a slump so bad that he admitted it changed his mindset forever. Just a few weeks ago, his Dodgers seemed so incapable of winning even one baseball game that it seemed silly anyone ever believed they would win more than any team had before. Betts, who was hitting .231 with a .657 OPS on Aug. 4, is hitting .331 with a .930 OPS since. And yet those same Dodgers, who lost seven of eight and five straight as September began, clinched the National League West championship Thursday for the 12th time in 13 seasons. They enter this weekend with little for which to play, because they are mathematically unable to catch the Milwaukee Brewers or Philadelphia Phillies for one of the two best records in the NL, which have secured those teams a first-round bye. The main question in the NL is who the Dodgers will play in a wild-card series. The New York Mets and their massive payroll enter this weekend with a one-game lead over the Cincinnati Reds and a two-game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks for the league’s final playoff spot. The Mets don’t enter the weekend owning any tiebreakers. So any combination of three Mets wins against the Miami Marlins - who lined up ace Sandy Alcantara for Friday night specifically to play spoiler - or Reds losses to the long-since-clinched Brewers will salvage New York’s season (assuming they also get any combination of two wins or Diamondbacks losses to the San Diego Padres). Any other outcome will qualify as historic disappointment. The Mets have played 159 games this season, and the next three will tell them who they are. For once, the same is not true of the Seattle Mariners, who made a habit in recent seasons of playing themselves into contention until the final weekend, only to let the playoffs slip away. This year, thanks in part to a historic season from catcher Cal Raleigh, who blasted his 59th and 60th home runs of the season Wednesday, they enter this weekend as AL West champions and with a first-round bye in their pockets. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, have seen the opposite materialize: A year after finishing last in their division, they seized first place in the AL East on July 3 and were alone there until Wednesday, when the Yankees caught them. The stress is showing for a team that has had more talent than success for years now, so much so that cameras caught veteran outfielder George Springer ranting in the dugout about umpires handing the division to the Yankees. But after losing six of seven to allow the Yankees to catch them, the Blue Jays used a clutch grand slam from Daulton Varsho to stabilize with a win Thursday night. They won the season series with the Yankees, which means if the Blue Jays win three games this weekend against the Tampa Bay Rays, they will win the AL East for the first time in 10 years no matter what the Yankees do against the Baltimore Orioles. Such is the strange weight of perspective that the Blue Jays could settle for a wild-card spot while the Mets would be consumed with relief to secure one. Such is the importance of this weekend that the Tigers could all but erase memories of their collapse if they can hold off the Guardians, or have their history rewritten if they do not. And such is the magic of autumn baseball that four days from now, when the regular season is over and all that matters is winning two games before the other team, then three games before the other team, then four, then four again - nothing that came before will matter much at all.
