The Major League Baseball regular season has reached its final day.
It’ll be Game 162 for every team on Sunday, Sept. 27 — and there are still some things that matter for the playoff bracket to come.
The MLB postseason now includes 12 teams, and 10 of those tickets have already been punched.
There is one spot in each league, though, that still requires determination.
In the American League, the AL West Division has yet to be decided.
In the National League, it’s the third-and-final Wild Card spot on the line.
Four teams are alive for those two spots: the Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers.
None of those teams play one another, so there’ll be plenty of scoreboard-watching going on.
What MLB Games Matter Today?
For playoff positioning, four games matter on the final day of the MLB regular season:
The Phillies and Diamondbacks are duking it out for the NL Wild Card. The Astros and Rangers want the AL West crown.
How Phillies-Rays Matters
The Phillies control their own destiny for the third-and-final NL Wild Card spot. They’re a game ahead of Arizona.
If the Phillies win, they’re in the playoffs.
If the Phillies lose, they miss out on the postseason if the Diamondbacks win.
How Diamondbacks-Padres Matters
This game doesn’t matter for the playoffs if the Phillies win.
But if the Phillies lose, the Diamondbacks get into the playoffs with a win. That’s because they’d have the same record as Philadelphia while also holding the applicable tiebreaker (intra-division record, since they’re tied in head-to-head record).
How Astros-A’s Matters
The Astros control their own destiny for the AL West Division title. They’re tied with the Rangers but hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.
If Houston wins in Sacramento, it’s a playoff spot for the Astros.
They only miss out with a loss and a Rangers win.
How Rangers-Twins Matters
The Rangers can’t get into the playoffs if the Astros win their game.
But if the Astros lose, then this Rangers game has big meaning — they’d then become AL West champions with a win in Minnesota to finish out the regular season.
MLB Schedule
It’s worth noting that MLB intentionally schedules every game on the last day of the regular season to start in the 3 p.m. ET window, usually within minutes of each other.
That’s so that a team doesn’t have the potential to gain an unfair advantage by games starting at different times.
So these games will be going on all at once, if weather allows it, and should create for some fun drama.
What MLB Games Matter Today? Playoffs on Line for Phillies, Diamondbacks, Astros, Rangers