Here are the September records of our wild-card teams:
Blue Jays, 7-12
Orioles, 10-9
Tigers, 8-9
Astros, 10-9
Mariners, 12-7
Yankees, 10-9
Mets, 11-8
Cardinals, 10-10
Giants, 8-12
Marlins, 9-10
The Seattle Mariners had that eight-game winning streak, and the New York Mets were playing well until this week, but otherwise this looks like a bunch of flawed teams playing mediocre baseball. It's a battle of attrition as much as a race. There, I said it. I still love baseball. And maybe that criticism is unfair. The Toronto Blue Jays are pretty solid but have had a bad month. FiveThirtyEight still gives them the best World Series odds of these teams at 5 percent.
Let's take a quick look at the state of the wild-card races.
Current wild-card odds (from FiveThirtyEight):
American League
Blue Jays: 68 percent
Orioles: 41 percent
Astros: 36 percent
Tigers: 32 percent
Mariners: 15 percent
Yankees: 7 percent
National League
Mets: 75 percent
Cardinals: 62 percent
Giants: 59 percent
Marlins: 1 percent