What to watch during MLB’s final weekend of the 2026 season

We have two days left in the 2026 MLB regular season — and still have several playoff races and seeds to decide, including two division races. The Chicago White Sox clinched a playoff spot on Thursday, making them perhaps the most shocking playoff team since the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays. But they still have their sights on a division title.

Across town, the Chicago Cubs also punched their ticket — the first time the two clubs have ever clinched playoff berths on the same day, according to ESPN Research — as Pete Crow-Armstrong became the seventh member of the 40/40 club. PCA has the NL MVP Award locked up, but he can still add the NL home run title to his ledger of awesomeness. Chicago baseball fans can now officially dream of the first White Sox-Cubs World Series since 1906.

Let’s run down what’s at stake this weekend, in the playoff races and on the individual side.

Playoff races

AL Central

Cleveland Guardians: 84-76 (at Kansas City Royals)
Chicago White Sox: 83-77 (vs. Colorado Rockies)

Tiebreaker: White Sox over Guardians

This has been a fun race over the past 10 days or so, since the pair played an exciting series last week. Both teams have continued to play well. The Guardians won six in a row before a 1-0 loss Wednesday, and a tired White Sox pitching staff delivered three one-run games last weekend against the Tigers.

Winning the division is important here: The winner will get the No. 2 seed and a bye into the division series and be able to rest its pitchers for a few days, which is especially important for a White Sox bullpen that has been pitching a ton of innings. Closer Grant Taylor, for example, has pitched more than one inning in his past five appearances, including one outing of seven outs. At least he has had five days off since last pitching Saturday, so he’s ready to go for Chicago this weekend.

The Guardians have Tanner Bibee starting on Saturday and then Parker Messick if needed on Sunday. If the Guardians don’t win the division, that would leave Foster Griffin as the likely Game 1 starter in the wild-card series, with Williams ready to go in Game 2. That’s not an ideal scenario given Griffin has a 5.19 ERA since coming to Cleveland at the trade deadline.

The White Sox line up Davis Martin and Anthony Kay in the final two games against the Rockies.

NL wild card

San Diego Padres: 89-71 (vs. Arizona Diamondbacks)
Chicago Cubs: 88-72 (at Boston Red Sox)
Philadelphia Phillies: 87-73 (vs. Tampa Bay Rays)
Arizona Diamondbacks: 86-74 (at Padres)

Tiebreakers:

• Cubs over Padres, Phillies and Diamondbacks
• Phillies over Padres
• Diamondbacks over Phillies

OK, this got a little less complicated with the Padres’ win over the Dodgers on Thursday as they joined the Cubs in clinching a playoff spot. Arizona, with six wins in a row, remains alive. The Diamondbacks will need more help from the Rays, but if they finish tied with the Phillies, they’re in and the Phillies out.

The above tiebreakers are just the head-to-head tiebreakers for a two-way tie. If three or more clubs are tied, it goes to winning percentage in games against one another. The Cubs won the season series against all three opponents, which is why they’ve clinched. If the Cubs, Phillies and Diamondbacks finish 88-74, the Cubs are the fifth seed while the Diamondbacks are the sixth seed. If the Cubs, Phillies and Padres finish tied, the Cubs are the fourth seed, the Phillies fifth and the Padres sixth.

AL West

Texas Rangers: 79-81 (at Minnesota Twins)
Houston Astros: 79-81 (at Athletics)

Tiebreaker: Astros over Rangers

Yes, dear readers, we might get our first sub-.500 division champion. It probably would have happened in the AL West in 1994, when the Rangers were 52-62, but the strike hit. For now, the worst record for a division winner belongs to the 2005 Padres, who won the NL West with an 82-80 record. This has been the division nobody wants to win: The Rangers are 11-10 in September after their win Thursday, and the Astros are 8-12.

The weekend’s starting pitchers:

Rangers: Nathan Eovaldi, undecided
Astros: Hayden Wesneski, undecided

Neither team will be in great shape with its starting pitchers entering the wild-card series after Hunter Brown and Jacob deGrom both lost Friday’s series openers. Cal Quantrill had been pitching great for the Rangers but injured his lat in his last start and landed on the 60-day IL. Cristian Javier would be slated to start Sunday for the Astros, but he left his start Tuesday after two innings. Kumar Rocker for the Rangers and Peter Lambert for the Astros would be the guys to start Game 1 since they pitched Thursday.

NL’s top teams

Milwaukee Brewers: 101-59 (vs. St. Louis Cardinals)
Los Angeles Dodgers: 98-62 (at San Francisco Giants)

Tiebreakers: Brewers over Dodgers

The Brewers clinched the No. 1 seed Thursday with a win and a loss by the Dodgers; the Braves’ loss to the Reds on Thursday locked them into the No. 3 seed and clinched a bye for the Dodgers.

How has the top overall seed done in the postseason? Though baseball’s playoffs are widely regarded as having a more random nature than other sports’, over the past 10 seasons, four of the top teams did win the World Series and two others reached it. Of course, there have always been the anomalies — like in 2021, when the Braves won it all after finishing the regular season with the 12th-best record in the majors, or 2023, when we had a World Series matchup between the Rangers (tied for sixth-best record) and Diamondbacks (tied for 12th).

Here’s what this weekend’s starters look like for each team:

Brewers: Dustin May, Jacob Misiorowski
Dodgers: Blake Snell, undecided
Braves: Martin Perez, JR Ritchie

Misiorowski last pitched Sunday, when he threw 44 pitches in three innings while pitching on four days’ rest for the first time since July 7. The first game of the NLDS won’t be until Oct. 3, so that would give him five days of rest before his Game 1 start. Like his last outing, this might be an abbreviated one to keep him as fresh as possible for that first October game.

Of note: The NL division series schedules have one less off day than the AL series, with off days after Games 2 and 4, so Misiorowski probably would return in a potential Game 5, pitching on five days’ rest. In the AL, the Game 1 starter could return for Game 4 on four days’ rest. For the Brewers, that also means they will need four starters in the NLDS, when only Misiorowski and Logan Henderson look dependable right now. May has been pulled in the third inning of his past two starts, which could push Gasser into the No. 3 role (Kyle Harrison looks like a complete nonfactor right now).

Keep in mind that the Brewers used an opener in four of their nine playoff games last year, so that’s a possibility — although the more likely scenario is that manager Pat Murphy has quick hooks with Gasser and May and relies on his bullpen.

Statistical races

Yordan Alvarez tries to lock up MVP

This was a Triple Crown chase a few weeks ago, but Pete Alonso pretty much clinched the RBI title and now leads in home runs as well, so the Astros slugger probably will have to settle for the MVP Award instead. The question: Do the Astros need to win the division for Alvarez to win? I don’t think so. Though we’re likely to see a scattered vote, with Alvarez, Junior Caminero, Bobby Witt Jr. and maybe Cam Schlittler all receiving first-place votes, Alvarez is probably the only player who is going to land first or second on just about every ballot.

Caminero has the advantage of having Drew Rasmussen and Nick Martinez as teammates on the mound, while Alvarez had Mike Burrows and Tatsuya Imai. But as hitters, Alvarez has been much better: He has created an estimated 151 runs heading into Thursday’s games compared with 107 for Caminero (who also ranks behind Ben Rice, Alonso and Miguel Vargas). And since Alvarez has the much higher on-base percentage — .432 to .360 — and Caminero has also grounded into 26 double plays, Alvarez has created more runs while using far fewer outs. He’s the best hitter in baseball this year, and it’s not close. That should get him MVP honors.

Who will finish with the most home runs?

AL: Alonso hit two home runs and Friday to take a two-homer leader over Alvarez, Caminero and Rice. The last home run tie came in 2021, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Salvador Perez led the AL with 48. There has never been a three-way tie … but there was a four-way tie in the AL in the strike-shortened season of 1981, when Eddie Murray, Dwight Evans, Bobby Grich and Tony Armas all hit 22.

NL: Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Schwarber are tied with 45. Schwarber is looking to lead the league for the second straight season and the third time since he joined the Phillies in 2022.

Who wins the batting title?

AL: Alvarez (.315) and Chandler Simpson (.306) are the only AL batters hitting .300.

NL: Gabriel Moreno (.311) passed Luis Arraez (.310), with Otto Lopez (.304) needing a super finish. Arraez, who left Thursday’s game with a sprained ankle and will likely miss at least the weekend, is going for his fourth batting crown, and Moreno would be the first catcher to lead since Buster Posey in 2012.

Will Alonso make history?

If Alonso does hold on to his RBI lead, he’ll become the first player to lead both leagues in RBIs after leading the NL with 131 in 2022 while with the Mets.

A few other races:

• NL RBIs: Alec Burleson (115) leads Sal Stewart (111) with Crow-Armstrong at 107. Not exactly the top contenders in March. Stewart would become the first rookie to lead his league since Walt Dropo of the 1950 Red Sox (some guy named Ted Williams is the only other rookie to do it).

• MLB strikeout leader: Cleveland’s Williams passed Misiorowski and now leads, 248 to 247. Misiorowski leads Schlittler for the overall major league lead in ERA, 1.86 to 1.95.

• A swing and a miss: Colston Montgomery broke Mark Reynolds’ single-season record of 223 strikeouts with his 224th on Friday. But Schwarber is close behind with 218 strikeouts.

Saying goodbye

This is the final weekend for Justin Verlander … and maybe Max Scherzer?

Verlander has announced his retirement, so we know his start Saturday at Comerica Park will be the final one of his illustrious first-ballot Hall of Fame career. Verlander has made only one start for the Detroit Tigers this season after returning to the team that drafted him No. 2 in 2004 (the Padres selected Matt Bush in front of him, one of the biggest draft mistakes of all time).

The three-time Cy Young winner looked like a potential 300-game winner in 2019, when he had 225 wins through his age-36 season and was coming off a 21-win and Cy Young season for the Astros. But Verlander pitched only once in 2020 before his elbow surrendered to time and then he sat out all of 2021. Remarkably, he came back in 2022 and won another Cy Young Award with an 18-win season and career-low 1.75 ERA. At the time, 300 wins remained a possibility — and a goal.

But he would go just 22-26 over the next four seasons, leaving him at 266 wins entering his final career start. After Scherzer and his 224 wins, next on the active wins list are Gerrit Cole at 163 and Chris Sale at 159. We’re not only not going to see a 300-game winner for … well, who knows … but we might not even see a 200-game winner for a long time. Indeed, Verlander and Scherzer will go down as perhaps the last of the true old-school guys who pitched 200-plus innings — and more at their peak — year after year.

Scherzer, who has a 6.14 ERA in 17 starts this season, hasn’t officially announced his retirement, recently saying he’ll have an announcement on his future in the coming days. He just pitched Wednesday but might come back on short rest to make one final start at home for his Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday. Maybe he wants to try to pass his former teammate on the career strikeout list: Verlander is eighth with 3,554 strikeouts, while Scherzer is four behind at 3,550.

The two were teammates for five seasons in Detroit, where they had, let us say, a bit of a rivalry. Here’s hoping Scherzer gets one last opportunity, if this is indeed the end, and finishes in a dead heat with Verlander. Then they can enter Cooperstown together.