The six top teams in the American League are jockeying for position while others are falling out of the race.
Each week on Camden Chat, we’ve been checking in on the American League postseason contenders. This past week, the Orioles leapfrogged the Yankees and grabbed hold of the best record in the American League, while a few other postseason hopefuls folded. Let’s check out what just happened and what’s coming up next.
We knew that playing two series against terrible opponents would present a golden opportunity for the Orioles to make up some ground, and boy, did they. In the span of a week, the O’s went from 1.5 games behind the Yankees to a half game up. And while the Birds didn’t completely mop the floor with the Rockies and White Sox — losing one game in each set — their 4-2 record was enough to overtake the Yanks, who dropped consecutive series to the Cardinals and Rangers.
That rough Yankees week included an MLB-worst 11th blown save from questionable All-Star selection Clay Holmes, who gave up a walkoff grand slam to Wyatt Langford in Texas, which prompted Yankees manager Aaron Boone to say he’ll “get creative” with the closer role from here on out. The Orioles aren’t the only team with bullpen problems, folks.
The Yankees, after losing to two teams they probably should have beaten, face a couple of tougher foes in their next two series. First they’ll visit the scalding hot Cubs, winners of 10 of their last 13 games, who have scored double-digit runs a whopping six times in that stretch. Then they host the likely playoff-bound Royals for three.
Meanwhile, the Orioles’ next six games are against intra-division foes, the Rays (in Baltimore) and the Red Sox (in Boston). The Rays’ season has been circling the drain for quite some time, and the Orioles have beaten them in eight of their 10 matchups this season. The Sox, too, are all but buried in the postseason race after a horrendous week that we’ll discuss in a bit. Both are easily winnable series for the Birds, though O’s fans well know that this team doesn’t always play quite how we expect them to.
Hey Royals: life comes at you fast. Just a week ago, they were on top of the world, winning a humongous series in Cleveland that tied them atop the AL Central for a day. Now, a mere seven games later, they’ve dropped to third place, 4.5 games off the Guardians’ pace. Yeah, that’ll happen when you lose seven games in a row. Kansas City suffered a brutal four-game sweep at the hands of the Astros, and also lost three to the Guardians, who avenged the Royals’ previous series win by returning the favor at Kauffman Stadium.
The good news for the Royals is that they’re still in comfortable position for a playoff spot, thanks to a simultaneous collapse by what had been their closest trailing team, the Red Sox. A team that was red-hot at the end of the first half has failed to show up since the All-Star break, going 17-27, and is currently riding a five-game losing streak after getting swept by the Mets. To sum up Boston’s current clubhouse atmosphere, Rafael Devers made reporters wait around for an hour while he stared into his locker, then refused to talk to them.
The slumping Sox have dropped behind the Mariners, who didn’t even have a good week themselves, going 2-4 against their two worst divisional opponents, the Angels and Athletics. The Tigers also jumped in front of Boston with a dramatic win last night in San Diego, on Parker Meadows’ go-ahead grand slam with his team trailing 3-0 and two outs in the ninth. Realistically, though, none of them have much of a chance.
It’s ironic: two years ago, MLB’s new collective bargaining agreement added a third wild card team to the postseason field in hopes that it would inject more drama into the playoff race. But in the case of the 2024 American League, it’s pretty much eliminated all drama. If there were still just two wild cards, the fight between the Twins and Royals for the last spot would be intense. With three, though, the race is all but over. The six AL postseason teams are unofficially set, barring any last-minute collapses. All that’s left to be decided is the seeding.
AL postseason matchups if the season ended today
#1 ORIOLES (AL East winner) — first round bye
#2 Guardians (AL Central winner) — first round bye
#3 Astros (AL West winner) host #6 Royals (third wild card) in WC Series
#4 Yankees (first wild card) host #5 Twins (second wild card) in WC Series
The Astros, despite having just the sixth-best record in the AL at 75-65, would get the #3 seed by virtue of winning a terrible AL West division, allowing them to host all three games of the wild card series against a team with a better record. Not that I would feel sorry for the Royals in that scenario, because, well, they’re the Royals. That would mark the first postseason matchup between those two teams since 2015, when Kansas City bounced the Astros in the ALDS on their way to winning the World Series.
The battle for the #1 seed is going to come down to the wire. The O’s are just a half game ahead of both the Yankees and Guardians (80-60) for the top slot, which would give them home field advantage throughout the American League playoffs. The Orioles, of course, held the #1 seed last year as well, which ended up mattering very little when they failed to make the ALCS at all. (Sorry to bring that up.) Whichever seed the O’s end up with this year, let’s aim for a much longer run through October, what do you say?