Good morning! Gerrit Cole allowed three consecutive home runs to start yesterday’s game against the Padres. Thankfully for Cole, he’s actually used to this — he had already done it once before and is now the only pitcher in baseball history to have done it twice. Historic lolz, Gerrit!
Kermit’s faceplant and the fact that the Sox are now only 2.5 games behind the Yankees has a lot of Sox fans wondering if they can still catch the Yankees for the first Wild Card, even after the disappointing recent
series in the Bronx. That seems highly unlikely to me. While 2.5 games doesn’t look like a lot, the Sox are 3 games behind the Yankees in the loss column — and you can effectively call that 4 games, since the Yankees hold the tie-breaker. Moreover, the Yankees have a pretty soft schedule to close out the season, starting this week with the Rockies and the Mets.
But you know who doesn’t have a soft schedule to end the season? The first place Rays, who play the Braves, Astros, A’s, Yankees, Red Sox, and Phillies to close out 2026. Yikes!
The Rays have a four-game lead over the Yankees, and, ultimately, I think it’s highly unlikely we see any movement between these three teams over the last month. But the Rays’ schedule combined with the fact that they will play a series directly against the Yankees has me at least wondering: could they slip into the Wild Card and would the Sox be better off playing the Rays in the first round?
If such a series did come to pass, it would mean that the Rays would be seriously spiraling heading into the postseason. And let’s face it, despite the better record, they don’t look as strong as the Yankees anyway. But it would also mean that the Yankees would be seriously surging into October, and I don’t love that, either.
Talk about postseason permutations and whatever else you want in this space and, as always, be good to one another.
