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.