As the dog days of summer come to a close, the MLB playoff race is beginning to heat up. Key battles are surging across both the National League (NL) and American League (AL), yet one prevailing theme has emerged this season – there is not just one best team. Putting aside the shortened season in 2020, this 2024 season is the first since 2014 where no team is on pace to win 100 games.
While this is extraordinarily unusual, it is not necessarily a bad thing for the sport. There is a lot of parity between each team. As of Tuesday, Sept. 17, there are four teams in both the AL and the NL fighting for the last wild card spot. In the AL, the Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners and Boston Red Sox are all within four games of the final spot, which is currently held by the Minnesota Twins. In the NL, the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Mets (one game behind Arizona) hold the final two spots – the Atlanta Braves are out of the Wild Card by one game, and the Chicago Cubs are five games back.
Aside from the peculiar season for teams around the league, two players in particular are having historically standout seasons. In the AL, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge continues to display his dominance, leading the league in both home runs and RBIs all while batting .321 (the second best batting average in the league, only behind Royals outfielder Bobby Witt Jr.). In the NL, Shohei Ohtani — who was unable to pitch this year after a major elbow surgery — added another aspect to his game: stealing bases. Ohtani is on pace to have the first ever recorded 50-50 season, meaning that he stole 50 bases and hit 50 home runs in one season. The last player to come closest to a 50-50 season was Alfonso Soriano, who hit 46 home runs and stole 41 bases in 2006. Nonetheless, no player has yet to reach the 50-50 milestone, making it one of the toughest statistical achievements in the sport.
On the mound, Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves are both having career-defining years. Both of the Cy Young favorites are on pace to win the pitching triple crown, which is leading the league in ERA, wins and strikeouts. The last time a pitcher from both leagues won the triple crown was 2011, and before that 1924, demonstrating just how unique and extraordinary this feat is. Winning the triple crown alone requires a tremendous amount of consistency (maintaining a low ERA), pure skill (strikeouts and pitch control) and a little bit of help from your team (finishing off wins).
The general fan consensus is that this has been a good season for the MLB in terms of its overall entertainment factor. The past two years have seen the league implement some radical rule changes in order to speed up the pace of play, which drew the ire of many baseball purists. The most controversial of these rules has been the implementation of a pitch clock, which caps the time between pitches during an at bat. The rule change has sped up games by an average of 24 minutes, keeping most games below the three hour mark. While the criticism may reign, the majority of MLB fans seem to support the rules designed to speed up the game.
It has been an intriguing season of baseball thus far, and with few games remaining it is still to be seen who will come out on top. Judging by the way the season has gone so far, it is safe to say that the race to the playoffs, and ultimately the World Series, is anything but finished.
