We’ve spent much of the last week discussing how the Red Sox won’t be playing much baseball in Boston this weekend thanks to an impending nor’easter. But what if I were to tell you it’s also still possible (however unlikely) that they might not be playing much baseball in New York next week either?
Don’t worry, it’s not weather related this time. Instead, it’s because there’s still a bizarre, long shot scenario teetering at the edge of the table where the Red Sox could fall to the No. 6 seed in the American
League.
At first glance, this seems impossible. At 85-73, Boston is four games clear of the White Sox with four to play, and even if the Red Sox were to lose out with the White Sox winning all of their remaining games, Boston also holds the head to head tiebreaker by virtue of their 6-0 record against the South Siders this season.
So, it’s over, right?
Wrong!
There’s still one monkey wrench that can flip the board, and that’s Cleveland’s presence. If the 82-76 Guardians win the rubber game at Fenway Park today and then also end up in a theoretical 85-77 tie with both pairs of Sox at the end of the weekend, all sorts of kooky stuff happens.
First of all, in a three-way tie scenario where one of the teams is not in the same division, the tie to determine that division (in this case the AL Central), takes precedent, and must be broken first. Well, guess what? The White Sox hold the tiebreaker over the Guardians, which means if the Red Sox end up tied with both of them, Chicago takes the division, leaving Boston to face off against Cleveland in the tiebreaker for the final seeding.
Right now, the Red Sox hold that tiebreaker over Cleveland thanks to their 3-2 head to head record. However, if the Guardians win today, that becomes 3-3, and the tiebreaker flips to the Guardians on interdivision record. In other words, Cleveland would go to the No. 5 seed, the Red Sox would land in Texas to play either the Astros or Rangers (whoever wins that wretched AL West division) as the No. 6, and Guardians would get shuffled all the way over to New York to play the Yankees.
On one hand, this is far fetched. But if you break it down piece by piece, it becomes one of those things that gets less and less ridiculous the more you look at it.
Let’s start with the Red Sox. They will be throwing Ranger Suarez today against Cleveland, who will counter with Daniel Espino. With the way Suarez has been throwing the ball the last few times out, that looks like a Boston win at first. But remember, the Sox used both Whitlock and Chapman last night, meaning they might not want to push them too hard and go there again today. Additionally, Suarez’ start is coming exactly five days before Game 1 of the Wild Card series, which means they’ll probably pull him after 75 or 80 pitches like they did with Sonny Gray on Wednesday.
Break it all down, and the Guardians are probably going to get a shot at the weaker part of the Red Sox bullpen they didn’t see today. Throw in Ceddanne Rafaela and Willson Contreras possibly not playing, and all of a sudden this becomes a hard game to predict.
From there, the Red Soxare likely going to play a double header against the Cubs on Friday, trying to get as many games in as possible before the nor’easter arrives. Well, as we’ve discussed all week, the Cubs are going to need those games as they fight for seeding in the NL Wild Card race. They enter play today one game behind the San Diego Padres for the top Wild Card billing. Meanwhile, the Red Sox will be done with the Payton Tolle / Sonny Gray / Ranger Suarez part of the rotation for the regular season and will probably be throwing Patrick Sandoval in one of these games. Is it really that hard to see the Cubs taking both ends of that double header?
Meanwhile, back in Chicago itself, the White Sox would need a sweep at home over the weekend to keep any chance of this crazy scenario alive. Well, guess what? They’re playing the Colorado Rockies. And not just the Colorado Rockies, but the Road Rockies. The worst team to ever do it!
Years ago, when I was over at Purple Row, I wrote about how the game is rigged against the Rockies, and how they face a literal competitive disadvantage because of a Coors Hangover Effect that happens when their hitters travel. On that note, the 2026 Road Rockies have been striaght trash! They’ve already been swept in 28 percent of their series this year, and have lost ten games in a row away from Coors Field. They’re so bad, they haven’t won a road game since August 26th!
The point here is that it’s not that hard to see how they could go into a rowdy atmosphere in Chicago this weekend and get their doors blown off. The White Sox are just one game behind the Guardians for not only the AL Central crown, but also for the No. 2 seed and a bye, so they will almost certainly be throwing all their resources at this race right down to the wire.
Of course, they also have to win their game in Kansas City this afternoon to even get this lunacy off the ground, but if they do that, you don’t have to squint too hard to see how this snowball might start running downhill. Again, all this silliness probably gets quashed in the net 36 hours by one of several candidates, but if we’re still sitting here on Saturday morning and the possibility of all this still alive, things will get really, really weird, really, really quick. And that’s before you throw in the weather with the Red Sox possibility waiting through days of rain to play Game their 162.
Can you imagine if they have to come back on Monday and play one last game against the Cubs and they can literally pick their path with a loss (through Texas and the AL Central winner) instead of having to go through New York and Tampa?
It’s nuts, and it would be nothing short of a bonkers scenario. But this is the 2026 Red Sox, and bonkers has kind of been the theme of the season. We’ve already seen some of the worst Red Sox baseball of all time at Fenway Park early in the season, a historic winning streak to fuel a remarkable turnaround, a team that has a penchant for playing well with plane problems, and now a huge nor’easter threatening to upend the schedule. If there was ever a year where something this daft might play out, wouldn’t it be this one?
Then again, Kansas City might beat the White Sox in a handful of hours and everything you just read will be rendered moot. Man I love wacky baseball!
