One week from today, it’s all over. The marathon that is the MLB season will conclude its 2022 edition and venture into a newly expanded postseason that’s sure to produce a slew of storylines to woo us all the way into November.
But before all that, the regular season still has some big storylines of its own — and plenty still undecided. As MLB begins its final calendar week of the 2022 campaign, here are the five biggest questions that remain.
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Will the Mets or Braves win the NL East?
This has been the most compelling postseason race for several months. The Mets, one of baseball’s elite teams, once led by 10.5 games before they cooled ever so slightly and the Braves, another of baseball’s elite teams, got surface-of-the-sun-hot and eventually took a half-game lead over the Mets before ceding the top spot back to New York for a time.
But as of this writing, they’re all tied atop the standings with three big games against each other this weekend in Atlanta. It’s possible (probable?) that the winner of this series takes the division crown. It just seems destined to happen. But there’s a lot at stake: The winner gets a bye, the loser becomes the top wild-card team and must play a crapshoot-ish three-game series against either the Padres, Phillies or possibly the Brewers. In other words, series don’t get any bigger than this. But that leads to our next question.
Will Hurricane Ian affect the Mets-Braves series this weekend?
This is a big deal and could become a major factor. There’s still uncertainty about the track of the storm, but some models have it potentially bringing lots of rain and wind to the Atlanta area Friday into Saturday, which would seem to put this big series in jeopardy, at least in terms of having it play out as intended. That could present an interesting situation for the teams and for MLB.
Should the forecast on, say, Wednesday afternoon, show Ian being unkind to the Atlanta area, MLB will have some decisions to make. Does the series start a day early on Thursday, a mutual off day for the Mets and Braves? If so, do they schedule a double-header that day, knowing that Friday and Saturday could present unplayable conditions? Do they start Thursday, take Friday and Saturday off and then play a day-night double-header on Sunday? Or do they take the nuclear option and relocate the series to a neutral location, such as Miami?
It’s unlikely MLB would schedule anything for the day after the regular season ends, given that the wild-card series are scheduled to start the next day. I won’t say it’s impossible a game could be played that day, but it would seem to be an absolute last resort, perhaps even less favorable than relocating the series entirely. Of course, it’s also very possible that the storm ends up being a non-factor and the series is played as scheduled, or at least very close to it.
Will Aaron Judge hit 62 homers and win the Triple Crown?
Judge remains stuck at 60 home runs, having not homered in his past seven games in his pursuit of a new American League single-season record. That might seem like an unusually long drought, but he had a nine-game homer-less stretch earlier in the season, so it’s not really all that unusual.
Factor in the grind of the season, the attention/pressure on him every at-bat, and that teams are pitching him carefully and the mini-drought is pretty easy to understand. But don’t think for a minute that he’s buckling under pressure. His slash line in September is .429/.554/.883. He’s doing just fine. But, yes, I think he’ll hit at least two more home runs over this last week.
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And, ho hum, he’s also on track to win the AL Triple Crown, with or without 62 homers. Nobody’s catching him in homers, and he enters Wednesday with a comfortable RBI lead (128) over Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez (119). The only question is whether he can hold off Luis Arraez and Xander Bogaerts for the batting title. Judge (.314) enters Wednesday just a hair ahead of Arraez (.313) and a few steps ahead of Bogaerts (.310).
Will the Mariners finally end their 21-year playoff drought?
It looked for a while like the Mariners had this thing in the bag and were ready to slay this particular demon with vengeance. But a poor road trip last week cast some doubts, especially after the M’s blew an 11-2 lead Sunday in Kansas City to conclude a 10-game stretch in which they went 3-7.
As of today, Seattle still holds a 3.5-game lead for the final AL wild-card spot over the Orioles, which is a pretty nice lead at this point in the season. It would take a solid surge from Baltimore AND a continued Mariners fade to lose that lead, which seems like an improbable scenario. But also, there are never guarantees in baseball. Hey, speaking of the Orioles …
Can the Orioles actually pull this off?
Regardless of how the Mariners-Orioles race finishes, a great story emerges. Either Seattle ends the longest postseason drought in North American sports or the Orioles defy all the odds and common sense to make the playoffs after everyone expected another horrible losing season. Heck, even the Orioles themselves weren’t sold on their contender status, as they traded fan favorite Trey Mancini to the Astros and closer Jorge Lopez to the Twins in July, rather than deciding to go for it.
But here they are, hanging on until the end, hoping to shock the baseball world. They’ll need some help to get it done, and that could be a tall order. Just finishing with a winning record, which they should do, is a major accomplishment. But either way, they’re a fun team and should have more Octobers in their future.
Bonus: What’s the deal with the Phillies and Brewers?
The last NL wild-card spot is likely to come down to these two teams. Entering play Wednesday, the Phillies hold a 1.5-game advantage over Milwaukee. But neither team is “getting after it,” as they say.
Philadelphia is 3-7 over its past 10 games, while Milwaukee is just 5-5. Both teams have been plagued by inconsistency for most of the season, and that weakness continues to rear its ugly head for both squads. Whichever one comes out the winner could have a very short postseason experience.
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