The Yankees are locked into the AL’s No. 4 seed, but that doesn’t mean the Wild Card picture is fully set. Tuesday’s results ended any lingering AL East title hopes, and the Bronx club’s place in the bracket is now fixed. What isn’t fixed yet is who waits on the other side.
Boston still looks overwhelmingly likely to come to Yankee Stadium next week, but its late-season stumble has opened a bizarre alternate route. Depending on how the Red Sox, Guardians and White Sox finish, there’s a narrow path where the Yankees draw Cleveland instead of Boston in the Wild Card Series.
Here’s the strange setup: if the Guardians take care of business at Fenway and then get tripped up by a Royals team playing spoiler, and if the White Sox beat Kansas City and the Rockies, the standings can tilt in a way that sends the Red Sox to the other side of the bracket. The Red Sox’s messy final series with the Cubs - a set that could be rescheduled and affected by weather - could also end up mattering.
If the Red Sox, Guardians, and White Sox all finish 85-77, the White Sox would win the AL Central, the Guardians would be the 5 seed, and the Red Sox would land as the 6 seed.
That would put the Yankees against Cleveland in the Wild Card Series.
There’s also a separate wrinkle for Boston if that kind of shuffle happens. Instead of opening against the Yankees, the Red Sox could get a softer playoff road, starting with borderline-.500 teams in the Astros/Rangers matchup and then facing the AL Central winner. In that scenario, Boston would avoid the Yankees or Rays until a theoretical ALCS.
It’s the kind of bracket math that makes you miss the old days, when one Wild Card team meant division rivals couldn’t collide before the ALCS. Instead, the expanded format leaves just enough room for chaos, even if the most likely outcome still points to Yankees-Red Sox.
For the Yankees, the final five games are now meaningless in the standings. There’s still a sliver of drama, though, if only because this seeding twist gives everyone something to watch besides exhibition baseball and the usual late-September odds and ends.
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