Final weekend pennant race

 Boston and Denver, last year's pennant winners, have clinched their divisions.

In the Superior League East, Louisville holds the first wildcard spot with 87 wins. They finish the year by playing Baltimore, who have one of the 2 remaining wild card spots. Baltimore has had a rough patch lately after being power swept by the Miami Stars. Miami is playing with an edge, not like a team looking for their third straight top 2 draft pick. In the 4 game sweep, Miami threw three shutouts and outscored Baltimore 17 to 1.

Toledo has the central division, and no other team there remains alive in the playoff hunt. In the west, Mars holds a 2 game lead for the division and Las Vegas, with 85 wins, is tied with Baltimore for the last 2 spots. Texas, with 84 wins, is the only team left that could overtake a playoff team. They will find a difficult opponent as they play Boston to end the season. Boston will not go easy or hold back, because they are playing for home field advantage in the Superior League. They can use their best starters, who are assured of full rest after the wild card round is over.

In the major league, the Rabbits have clinched the central and St. Louis has one wild card spot. The Rabbits have no chance at catching Bay Area or Philadelphia, so they will rest their top starters in a meaningless series against Green Day.

Philadelphia has one thing left to play for. They have clinched the best record in baseball, but will start Tom Weaver (23-5) one more time as he attempts to reach 400 strikeouts. He needs only 11 more.

The last 2 wild card spots will go to crappy teams who all had chances to put this race away several times, but through their own mediocrity stayed right in the middle of the pack. Nobody really seems to want the playoff spots, but 2 will get them anyway. The most likely scenario is that in two series, best of 3 will decide the race.

Portland hosts New York, and Toronto plays in Orlando.

Three of the teams have 78 wins, and Orlando has 79.

The weird thing would be if Toronto takes 2 out of 3 from Orlando, and the other series does not result in a sweep. That would give 3 teams 80 wins and force us to bring out the tiebreakers. Further complicating things would be if Hollywood (77 wins) sweeps its final series against Bay Area. This is a Hollywood team that had a chance to take control of this race but has lost their last 6 games against 4th place Hawaii and last place Los Angeles.

One week to go for season

 In the division races, Toledo has joined Philadelphia and Bay Area as division champions. The latter two teams have dominated their divisions all year long, are 20+ games up on the second place teams, and have clinched first round byes.

The Denver Rabbits have clinched a playoff spot. They hold a 3.5 game lead over St Louis for the division but have already clinched a playoff spot. They hold the tiebreaker, so any combination of 2 Denver wins or St Louis losses gives the division to Denver. The Rabbits however have no chance to catch the top 2 teams in the league for a first round bye, so one way or another they will play in the wild card round next week.

The other 2024 World Series team, Boston, has also clinched a playoff spot. They are 5 games ahead of Baltimore for the division title. Their magic number is 3 over Baltimore, and 2 over Louisville.

The closest division race features the surprise Mars team against the veteran Las Vegas Gamblers. The Gamblers started the season strong but had a rough stretch with multiple injuries. They are mostly healthy now, but still playing inconsistent baseball. They lost 2 in a row to a terrible Cleveland team, however they were able to hold their wild card spot with help from Utah, who won 2 against Texas.

Las Vegas is 2.5 behind Mars and 1.5 ahead of Texas. The Charlotte Hawks, at 80-76, have not been eliminated yet. Las Vegas has a favorable schedule, playing Phoenix and Utah. Mars faces the same two teams in reverse order. Texas finishes the year with a road trip to New York and Boston. Charlotte finishes against Cleveland and St. Louis.

The odds are in favor of Mars and Las Vegas taking the division and final wild card spot.

 The biggest unknown is the major league wild card jumble. For the last several weeks we have seen 7 to 8 teams play close to .500 ball and put themselves into the mix. Even at this late date, only Los Angeles and Florida are mathematically eliminated. Several other teams are out for all intents and purposes, as they are at least 9 games under .500 and would need to win all of their games will their opponents lose all. This is not possible as they are chasing multiple teams, some of who have to play each other. The virtually eliminated group is:

Alaska, Hawaii, Detroit, Green Day

The New York Cobra, at 75-81, are on their last legs. They would need to sweep their last 6 games to have a chance. They will play Florida before finishing the season in Portland.

Portland is one game back, but in a position where they mostly control their destiny. Before hosting New York, they play 4 games against Orlando, who currently holds down the #3 wild card spot.

Hollywood is a half game back. After starting the season strong, they have been under .500 for the last 4 months. They play Hawaii, followed by the mighty Bay Area.

Orlando, currently 1 game under .500, plays 4 against Portland and then finishes against Toronto. Toronto, at .500, is the #2 wild card at this moment. The Orlando schedule will decide one way or another which of these teams gets to the postseason.

Before the finale, Toronto will have a major challenge with a 3 game series in Philadelphia. They need to win a few more games to move on, but their first matchup is against the pitching triple crown leader who needs 7 more strikeouts to break Nolan Ryan's best single season mark.

St Louis has the first wild card spot with a 4 game lead over second place. They have at the very worst one of the wild card spots since several of the teams behind them have to play each other.

Tiebreakers? Too difficult to make sense of at this point. We'll see if we need them.