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Several Teams Eliminated From MLB Postseason Contention as Playoff Races Heat Up

The New York Mets, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians all saw their seasons effectively come to an end on Friday.
Sam Connon|
Several Teams Eliminated From MLB Postseason Contention as Playoff Races Heat Up
Several Teams Eliminated From MLB Postseason Contention as Playoff Races Heat Up

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Detroit TigersNew York Mets

With the playoffs less than two weeks away, teams across the league are dropping like flies.

The New York Mets, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians were all mathematically eliminated from postseason contention on Friday alone. With the Boston Red Sox getting eliminated two days earlier, there are now just 19 teams left playing for something in 2023.

Six tickets to October have already been punched, as the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays have all already clinched playoff spots.

The Mets surely expected to be in that group heading into the season, considering their record-breaking payroll and 101-win campaign in 2022. New York fell to 71-83 with a second-straight loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday, though, stomping out any chance of them putting together a miracle run.

The Guardians and Tigers, on the other hand, stayed along far longer than they had any business to, as they had already been eliminated from the AL Wild Card race. The Twins are the worst division-leader at 82-72, though, which technically kept Cleveland and Detroit in the hunt past mid-September.

An 8-2 loss to the Oakland Athletics knocked the Tigers out of Friday. The Guardians actually went up 2-0 in their series against the Orioles, but the Twins' win up in Minnesota eliminated them regardless.

The Texas Rangers, Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners have been left to battle it out for the AL West crown, while the two losers in that race will have to fend off the Toronto Blue Jays to nab one of the two remaining AL Wild Card spots. The New York Yankees are technically still alive, 7.0 games back with eight games to go, but FanGraphs gives them a 0.0% chance of making it to the finish line.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are in a similar situation on the NL side of the bracket. The San Francisco Giants have a 2.3% chance of earning a Wild Card bid, and the San Diego Padres aren't far behind at 1.1%.

The Brewers will clinch the NL Central with just one more win, leaving the Giants, Padres, Phillies, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, Arizona Diamondbacks to fight each other for the three Wild Card spots.

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Sam Connon
SAM CONNON

Sam Connon is a staff writer covering baseball for “Fastball on SI.’’ He previously covered UCLA Athletics for On SI’s All Bruins site, and is a UCLA graduate, with his work there as a sports columnist receiving awards from the College Media Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Connon also wrote for On SI’s New England Patriots site, Patriots Country, and he was on the Patriots and Boston Red Sox beats at Prime Time Sports Talk. Sam lives in Boston.

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