The American League playoff race has been mild and mostly uninteresting. Sure, Oakland has played out of its mind during the second half and it's been worth following the Red Sox to see if they could make a run at 110 wins, but there's been nothing captivating about any of the races.
The Twins let everyone down by conceding the Central to Cleveland at midseason. Tampa Bay could win 90 games, but it's the wrong year for that.
But, as we head into the final week of the regular season, all the intrigue is in the National League.
Atlanta, one of the surprise teams of the season, has clinched the East. That's it. The other two divisions are wide open with only a few games remaining — and that means somebody is going to be ticked off by this time next week that they blew it down the stretch.
The Central will be won by the Cubs, Brewers or, with long-shot odds, the Cardinals.
The West will be won by either the Dodgers or the surprising Rockies. Arizona, which traded for the Twins' Eduardo Escobar in hopes of keeping its hopes afloat, has sunk.
Now, the Rockies are a half-game out of the second wild card spot and 1 ½ games out of the division lead. That means these standings are going to swing every night. And there's a chance that three teams from the N.L. Central could reach the postseason — who saw that one coming?
And there's a mind-boggling scenario out there in which Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers and Rockies could finish in a four-way tie. That would disrupt the postseason schedule so two tiebreaker games could be played Monday, a consolation game Tuesday to determine a second wild card winner, then the actual wild card game Wednesday.
