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Praise the second wild-card berth.

Without it, this final weekend in Major League Baseball might be the kind that forces even the steadfast fan to shift his or her attention to the gridiron. But because we are in the era of two wild-card teams in each league, there is no need for attention to be taken off the diamond over the next two days. 

The Houston Astros, Los Angeles Angels and Minnesota Twins are still alive in the sprint for the second AL wild-card spot. Houston leads the race thanks to a blowout win spearheaded by a stellar start from ace Dallas Keuchel against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday, also keeping them alive in the race for the American League West title.

The Angels again relied on Mike Trout and Albert Pujols, along with former ace Jered Weaver, to get a win against the AL West-leading Texas Rangers to remain one game behind the Astros. And the Twins lost to the Kansas City Royals on Friday, putting themselves in a position where they need a ton of help now that they are two games behind the Astros.

All three teams have two games remaining.

The Rangers have a magic number of one to clinch the West, so one more win against the Angels, and the Astros are locked out of that possibility. However, the Astros dictate their own fate for the second wild-card spot. If they win their next two games in Arizona, there is nothing the Angels or Twins can do to knock them from that spot.

Houston is set to use Collin McHugh, who stunningly has 18 wins this season despite a 3.98 ERA and 101 ERA+ over his 31 starts, on Saturday. In his last four turns, the right-hander has a 5.70 ERA (15 earned runs allowed in 23.2 innings), and the Diamondbacks are one of the highest-scoring teams in the National League.

The Astros have not named a starter for Sunday yet, but it would normally be Lance McCullers‘ turn in the rotation. The 22-year-old rookie has given the team six quality starts in his last seven turns, and the lone outing that was not he pitched five innings and allowed two runs. His ERA over those seven stats is 3.27. 

The Angels saved themselves Friday, getting a gutty six innings from Weaver. Four relievers then combined for three scoreless innings, which allowed for Trout’s leadoff triple in the ninth inning followed by Pujols’ run-scoring single to hold up for the victory.

“I probably didn’t have my best stuff going out there,” Weaver told reporters. “… Somebody was looking out for me tonight.”

The Angles need to win out and have the Diamondbacks pick off the Astros once over the next two games. Do that and the Angels force a one-game playoff to get into the do-or-die Wild Card Game.

Hector Santiago takes the ball for the Angels on Saturday, but he has not completed six innings in any of his last three starts (10 earned runs allowed in those games), but in two starts before that he allowed just two runs in 13 innings. The Angels desperately need him to revert back to that form in his final start of the regular season.

Right-hander Nick Tropeano throws Sunday. He has pitched well lately, allowing three earned runs in his last 17 innings, but the Rangers could counter him with ace Cole Hamels. The southpaw allowed six runs in six innings in his last turn, but before that he had a 2.78 ERA in his previous eight starts.

After the Angels won Friday, manager Mike Scioscia stated the obvious based on his team’s position in the standings.

“We consider all of these playoff games,” he told MLB Network Radio.

The Twins gave up two runs in the top of the eighth inning and ended up losing 3-1 to the Royals on Friday, pushing them two games behind the Astros and a game behind the Angels. Now, for the Twins’ games to mean anything, the Astros have to lose their next two and the Angels have to lose at least once. Even if the Twins win their next two, they will not get into the playoffs without that help.

The Twins are going with Tommy Milone on Saturday, but the Royals have Yordano Ventura (five earned runs in his last three starts) and Johnny Cueto (eight earned over his last three) scheduled for the weekend.

“I don’t like it but all we can do is keep battling and see what happens,” Twins right fielder Torii Hunter told reporters. “The scenario is those guys lose two, we win two.”

The Astros clearly hold the advantage as the schedule comes down to its final two days, but the MLB regular season has seen stranger things happen than what would have to go down for Minnesota to make the playoffs. 

Oh, how that second wild-card spot is keeping it interesting.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Major League Baseball and its rules, written or otherwise, bring about the most passionate of sports discussions. Tradition, the “right way” of doing things and one side’s self-interest go against new-age, outside-the-box thinking and the other side’s self-interest in a carousel of arguments, from the barstools to traditional and social media and even to front offices.

Baseball is inherently unique in that way, but it is also starved for the kind of excitement that attracts casual sports fans and a younger demographic with far more to fill its fleeting attention span than just the sports their grandfathers might have loved.

MLB‘s addition of the second wild-card playoff berth serves two significant purposes beyond fanning the flames of fanatical debate.

First, it brings teams into contention that would not have been before—and this season is a great example of that, as both leagues’ playoff fields could have been determined weeks ago based on how the system altered trade-deadline decisions.

Second, it brings the drama—manufactured as it may be—of a do-or-die, win-or-go-home Game 7 that attracts viewers of varying demographics to an event that’s perfect for TV.

But there’s a downside related to that second advantage. A six-month season of 162 games is rewarded with one more game for four teams. And in those few hours, any outcome is possible, and we wouldn’t even need playoff-caliber teams involved for that to be true.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are going into the playoffs for the third consecutive year as a wild-card team, and with their record being the second-best in the National League this season, we could call them victims of the second wild card since they would have played in the NL Division Series before its implementation.

On the other side, the second wild-card berth could salvage the Houston Astros’ or the Los Angeles Angels’ year. Without it, their seasons would already likely be cast as huge disappointments.

Strictly going off the reasons the second wild card was put into play, it has been successful. It has created late-season excitement and has been great for television ratings.

“Personally, I think it is a mistake to get caught up in results,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters, including Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com. “I understand what you’re saying about Pittsburgh and what has happened to them. I get it. But I think it’s a mistake to focus on an individual team as opposed to the system.”

The system itself is flawed, though—at least in the minds of many fans, coaches, executives and players, past and present. It goes against the marathon persona of the sport, one that scoffs at small sample sizes and always has a long-term outlook.

The postseason without this one-game play-in was already an act of randomness because of a relatively small sample of games—seven games as opposed to 162 to prove how good you are. The wild-card format boils that down to the smallest of possible samples.

“Yet after 162 games and many more in spring training, after every way to evaluate your opponent and team based on a series, we decide with one game,” analyst and former major leaguer Doug Glanville wrote for ESPN.com two years ago. “This makes no sense from a baseball perspective.”

There is no simple solution, aside from eliminating the second wild-card berth, which has already been a massive success, considering the San Francisco Giants won the World Series from that position last season.

Making the wild card a three-game series would be problematic for two reasons. It would extend the postseason further into November, pitting the sport against the vastly more popular National Football League, which now plays three days out of the week during the baseball postseason.

It could also leave the team awaiting the winner of the wild-card series without any meaningful baseball to play for nearly a month. And that could happen even if the wild-card series featured a doubleheader, which would severely hurt the all-important bullpens.

Both wild-card eras can be considered successes, and the one-game playoff is going to be here for a while. An anomaly where the three best records in the league all come from the same division, which could happen this season with the NL Central, should not cause the upheaval of a young format.

The Pirates may be getting penalized this season by having to play the do-or-die game and not going straight into the NLDS, but teams like the Astros and Angels are benefiting.

And because of the second wild card, as many as four fanbases this season, and potentially more in other years, can be legitimately engaged in the races in the final week. Without it, the Pirates and New York Yankees would have ended the drama a while back.

“You look at the interest it draws throughout the season for so many teams,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle told reporters, “and the dynamic is pretty special the way it is.”

Based on what MLB set out to accomplish, the new wild-card format has been a triumph. Ratings are good, the drama is great and it keeps fans coming to the ballparks at a time when they’d be turning their attention elsewhere without the second wild-card spot. Those are points that not even the most cynical baseball fan can argue against.

The system might not be perfect, but it can still continue to improve the game, as it has already.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

When an actor gives a poor performance on Broadway, unflattering reviews and an unsatisfied audience usually follow.

That is the natural order of consequences. All an actor can do in response is prepare, come out the next time and give a better performance. That is the extent of what fans and critics can ask.

The same goes for professional athletes. But when those ugly outings come during the postseason, the stage is infinitely bigger than any Broadway has to offer. Poor performances on the field can lead to more significant consequences, including helping getting a team eliminated from the playoffs and/or making a player expendable from a roster. The boos are also inevitable.

Prince Fielder has experienced all of that. The Texas Rangers’ high-priced designated hitter, a front-runner for the American League’s Comeback Player of the Year Award, has dealt with the criticism that has come with his shoddy postseason numbers with the Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers, the latter of which traded him after the 2013 season.

“I got kids, man,” Fielder famously told reporters while explaining how the hurt from the 2013 ALCS elimination loss to the Boston Red Sox, the last time Fielder appeared in the playoffs, wouldn’t linger.

His responses still do not sit well with his former home fans.

Prince Fielder bounces weakly to first. Already in postseason mode. #igotkidsman

— Motor City Bengals (@MCB_Tigers) August 20, 2015

“You have to be a man about it,” Fielder added two Octobers ago after he hit .182 in the ALCS. “I have kids. If I’m sitting around pouting about it, how am I going to tell them to keep their chins or keep their heads up when something doesn’t go their way? It’s over.”

When told Tiger fans might not embrace that kind of response, Fielder fired back with an age-old athlete adage: “They don’t play.”

Fielder does, but it has been at an entirely pedestrian level during the playoffs over the course of his otherwise impressive career. He has played in 39 postseason games and accumulated 164 plate appearances with the Brewers and Tigers since October 2008.

In no series has he hit higher than .278, and his career slash line is .194/.287/.333 with a .620 OPS, five home runs and 11 RBI. He has not homered in his last 20 games (84 plate appearances). He has one extra-base hit in his last 18 and has not driven in a run in his last 18. Also, in his last 16 games (65 plate appearances), he has struck out 12 times against three walks.

But to have any kind of working relationship with Fielder is to understand his unwillingness to show public frustration or question his own abilities. That attitude stretches to his team, as he showed Monday after the Rangers’ third consecutive loss.

But his comments following the 7-4 loss to the Tigers could have very well summed up his attitude toward his postseason disappointments. He is stoic in both defeat and triumph when the microphones are turned on, downplaying virtually every question hurled his way.

“Worry doesn’t do anything,” Fielder told reporters Monday. “It just makes everything seem bigger than it is.”

Everything about Fielder’s career has been big, though. From his stature (5’11”, 275 lbs) to his home runs—he was the youngest player to ever hit 50 homers in a season when he did it at 23 years, 139 days—to his $214 million contract over nine years, to his playoff failures.

Even his injury last season was a big one. He had a herniated disk in his neck and had surgery in May of last year to fuse two of the disks in his spine. That injury, which started to bother him for the first time in 2012, severely limited his production in 2014 and chopped his season to just 42 games in his first with the Rangers after never having played fewer than 157 contests in any of his previous eight full seasons.

At the time, the injury was significant enough for everyone, including Fielder, to wonder if he would ever be the same slugging, intimidating middle-of-the-order behemoth he had been in those previous eight years.

“There’s doubts,” Fielder told Tyler Kepner of the New York Times last weekend. “You have neck surgery, you don’t know where you’re at. You haven’t played in a year or so, you don’t know where you’re going to be.”

“You worry a lot,” Fielder added. “Anytime someone does surgery, let alone on your spine, it’s a little weird.”

This season has been a wonderful bounce-back campaign. Any doubts have evaporated in the Texas heat as Fielder’s batting average has been no lower than .300 since the third game of the year. His power numbers have been down—his 23 home runs would be the lowest full-season total of his career—but he is getting on base at a .381 clip, reminiscent of his Brewer days that earned him that enormous contract with the Tigers.

But we have seen these kinds of award-worthy seasons from Fielder before, and we have also seen them devolve into ugly postseasons. That cannot happen this time around, assuming the Rangers qualify as the AL West champions or through the wild-card route. The Rangers are not a good enough team to overcome one of their most valuable players performing as Fielder has in past Octobers.

For the Rangers to have a real chance to advance in these coming playoffs, Fielder has to continue being the offensive force he has been his entire career, including this season.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The American League West is completely invested in and totally behind the implementation of the second wild card. It has to be. 

If it were not for that spot, two of its postseason contenders would be left out of the tournament, fighting solely for first place in the division.

As things stand, the Texas Rangers are looking down at the others. The Houston Astros are chasing the Rangers while also trying to kick back the Los Angeles Angels, a team with six consecutive wins as of their Monday night walk-off victory over the Oakland A’s and hanging just a half-game behind the Astros.

The Rangers lost their third in a row Monday, and the Astros won their third consecutive contest. Texas now leads the division by 1.5 games, with the Angels lurking two back. That bunch-up will cause plenty of scoreboard-watching and tense times over this final week of the season.

Let’s get weird. AL #WildCard is shaping up towards a crazy finish: http://t.co/F4gJ07DHcE pic.twitter.com/RadGhxNTru

— MLB (@MLB) September 29, 2015

“We’re hanging in there,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said, per Alden Gonzalez of MLB.com. “We’re hanging in there.”

That is because of that second wild-card berth. It also means this division is going to keep an entire baseball-watching country interested in late-September baseball. It’s going to be a good time.

Meanwhile, Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West” plays on the stadium speakers. Fitting — and fun!

— Alden Gonzalez (@Alden_Gonzalez) September 29, 2015

Making it better is that the Rangers host the Angels for a four-game, season-ending series starting Thursday. All games count for the same number of wins and losses, but that series, depending on what happens over the next two days, could do more to determine who participates in the postseason than any other for any team this year.

The fact that it might very well affect four clubs, all within whispering distance of each other, makes it the series to watch for all fans. The Houston Astros, who oddly finish their season with three games in Arizona against the Diamondbacks, and Minnesota Twins will be paying close attention as well.

The Twins have been a little overlooked because of this western ordeal, but they are maybe the most surprising playoff contender of the bunch. They also won Monday, their third consecutive victory, and are 1.5 games back of the Astros for that second wild card. They finish off with the Cleveland Indians and then the Kansas City Royals, who may very well be resting some regulars by the time that weekend series is played.

“It feels good but we’re obviously not finished yet,” Twins third baseman Trevor Plouffe said, per Jordan Bastian and Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com. “We’ve been battling all season. We’ve put ourselves in a good position and we’re looking forward to these last six games. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Astros, Angels, and Twins all won. Lots of moving parts in the AL wild card race and Houston is only 1.5 games behind Texas in the AL West.

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) September 29, 2015

The Rangers are giving the ball to Cole Hamels on Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers, and this is the kind of start an ace is made for. He has to stop the bleeding, and based on his recent outings, he is the perfect bandage.

Since missing a start because of a groin injury in mid-August, Hamels is 5-0 with a 2.78 ERA in eight starts. The Rangers have won all of Hamels’ turns in that time, and the only other occasion during that run he started a game after a Rangers loss he pitched seven innings, allowed one run and struck out 12 against the Seattle Mariners. That is the definition of a “stopper.”

“We’ve got our guy going tomorrow,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said after his club lost Monday, per Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News.

The Rangers desperately need Hamels to produce a win, because the Astros are playing in Seattle and will not have to face ace Felix Hernandez in their next two before heading to Phoenix. And once there, Houston will throw ace Dallas Keuchel, while the Diamondbacks have the inconsistent Rubby De La Rosa and Jeremy Hellickson scheduled to pitch the first two games, though Hellickson has a 2.49 ERA in his last five starts. 

The Angels have two more against the A’s before that big Rangers series, and they face Chris Bassitt on Tuesday and Barry Zito, who allowed four runs in two innings in his only start this season, on Wednesday. Garrett Richards, the Angels ace, who has five quality starts in his last six outings, opposes Zito, making him available to pitch the season finale against Texas on short rest if needed.

With all three teams seemingly set up well, none of the leads are secure or safe.

“Safe? There’s nothing safe in baseball,” Banister said Sunday, per the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). “You’ve got to continue to play. It’s about competing. These guys, they’ve never taken that approach. We’ve been playing from behind all year long. We’ve worked way too hard to get to this point to think that anything is safe.”

Thank you for that and this entire week, second wild card.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The pick-an-ace game of chance will not work in October.

The New York Yankees need a definitive answer. But for nearly six months, that all-important No. 1 spot in the rotation has been a revolving door of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately candidates, none of which have been able to keep the position in their grasps for what seems like more than a couple of weeks at a time because of ineffectiveness, injuries or both. 

Even through patches of injuries and inconsistency, Masahiro Tanaka has been considered the team’s best option to start any big October game, whether it be one in the final days of the regular season, a wild-card play-in or Game 1 of the American League Division Series. Of the starters who have been with the team all season, the Japanese right-hander leads the Yankees with a 3.38 ERA, 0.987 WHIP and 118 ERA+, showing he has been mostly good this season when healthy.

His health, however, is his biggest obstacle. His latest problem is a right hamstring strain suffered on Sept. 18. He was feeling discomfort in it as late as Friday, and the Yankees now do not know when, or if, he will take the ball before the end of the regular season. It was announced Sunday that if Tanaka cannot take the mound by Thursday, he won’t start again before the playoffs, when he would likely be called upon for a one-game wild-card sudden death likely to happen at Yankee Stadium.

If Tanaka does not pitch again until the postseason, that would be 18 days between starts, the second one coming on Oct. 6 in the franchise’s most important game since 2012. If he is not 100 percent healthy, or effective, his team’s playoff chances are put in real jeopardy.

No doubt #Yankees want to get Tanaka at least a tune-up start before Tues WC game, but have to balance how he feels too. Clock ticking.

— David Lennon (@DPLennon) September 26, 2015

“I know everyone wants an answer, but it’s really not that simple because of his value to us moving forward,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi told reporters, via Grace Raynor of MLB.com. “It’s something you have to weigh. Is it worth the risk maybe moving it up a day or two days if you need him, to what could possibly happen? It’s a careful situation that we’re trying to manage. I wish I knew, really.” 

Before Tanaka, who could pitch out of the bullpen if he does not make a start by Thursday, hurt his hamstring running to first base in a game against the New York Mets, he was pitching like the ace the Yankees figured him to be when they signed him for $155 million over seven years. In his last eight starts, he had a 2.60 ERA, including two dominant outings against the Toronto Blue Jays in which he combined to allow one run with 15 strikeouts across 16 innings.

That kind of production gives the Yankees an arm that can match up with any the other wild-card contenders might throw at them, including Houston’s Dallas Keuchel, Texas’ Cole Hamels or whoever the Los Angeles Angels or Minnesota Twins might decide to trot out there. The problem, of course, is Tanaka’s availability, or his sharpness in the safe assumption that he is ready to pitch in that game.

“I don’t think we’re there yet. I’m not ready to talk anything about that yet,” Tanaka told reporters through an interpreter, via Raynor. “As for now, for me, I’m just happy with the way I’m progressing.”

If the Yankees are not comfortable throwing Tanaka in his first postseason game on 18 days of rest, they have another option, though one that is less proven—21-year-old rookie Luis Severino, who has a 2.77 ERA in 10 major league starts after he pitched six shutout innings Sunday against the Chicago White Sox.

If Tanaka’s not ready for the wild card game — he likely will be — then Severino would be a good choice, eh? You know, if it goes that way

— Anthony McCarron (@AnthonyMcCarron) September 27, 2015

“I would be happy to, of course,” Severino told reporters Sunday, via Newsday‘s Neil Best.

The Yankees don’t want to be forced into that alternative, obviously. Not because Severino has not demonstrated his value, because he has. And part of the reason they made sure to limit him in his 19 minor league starts was so they could keep him fresh for September and October in the majors.

But that Wild Card Game is exactly the kind of start the Yankees envisioned Tanaka making when they signed him. For the better part of the last two seasons, he has shown, when healthy, he is the kind of pitcher who should get the ball in a do-or-die scenario.

The problem is getting him prepared for it. Hamstrings are temperamental; they act up without notice. And that is beside the fact that keeping Tanaka sharp after nearly three weeks of nonaction seems fairly improbable even for a front-line starter.

In order for the Yankees to advance, though, the hamstring and the stuff have to be ever-present. If not, the franchise’s return to the postseason might last just a few hours.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It is done. At last.

The inevitable seemed to drag out longer than anyone truly wanted it to, delaying what everyone knew was coming, which was jubilation on one side and a hint of finality about to set in on the other.

The New York Mets clinched the National League East title Saturday, hammering the Cincinnati Reds early at Great American Ball Park to ensure about an hour into the game that the celebration would be commencing soon.

The 10-2 win, which came on the strength of starter Matt Harvey’s 6.2 innings and two earned runs on 97 pitches, gave the Mets their first division title since 2006, and it will be their first postseason appearance since then as well. They did it as the heavy underdog; the Washington Nationals expected to trounce them when Opening Day rolled around in April.

Meanwhile, those Nationals, easily the most disappointing team in Major League Baseball this year, have been going through the motions. They claimed they believed in the postseason dream up until the end, even though the odds had buried them weeks earlier and their sense of urgency was gone well before that. The Mets’ official Twitter account highlighted the team capturing the NL East:

For the 1st time since 2006, the #Mets are NL East CHAMPIONS! #LGM pic.twitter.com/f5sxef5U0T

— New York Mets (@Mets) September 26, 2015

The Nationals also won a game Saturday, but by the time Bryce Harper hit a walk-off double to beat the Philadelphia Phillies in the 12th inning, the Mets were already well into their celebration.

In fact, in the same moments Harper’s hit won the game, Mets rookie right-hander Noah Syndergaard was tapping buttons on social media to share with the world the feelings he and his teammates were experiencing:

Clubhouse clinching vibe like…….. pic.twitter.com/HSx7vfCDJy

— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) September 26, 2015

The Mets are going to be the top dog in the NL East for a while—at least that is easy to believe right now.

They have position players still coming into their own, such as Travis d’Arnaud, and the franchise should be willing to spend the money to add to that core, whether it is re-signing impending free agent Yoenis Cespedes or finding offense in another form. Even with “Captain America,” David Wright, on the downside of his career, the Mets should feature a capable offense going forward.

The pitching, of course, is the foundation. Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz and Syndergaard are the players who will decide the peaks this franchise reaches over the next handful of seasons, starting with these coming playoffs. With that kind of starting pitching core, the Mets can be penciled in to contend without hesitation.

The Nationals were built to contend in 2015, and the future was going to be unclear beyond that with key players hitting free agency.

While the Mets were viewed as an up-and-coming club still finding itself at the start of the season, the Nationals were thought to be the squad of mostly veterans—including 22-year-old Harper in his fourth year—built on potentially dominant starting pitching and enough offensive firepower to win, even if the starters had a letdown.

Now, more than eight months after the Nats signed Max Scherzer and became the overwhelming division favorites, the team seems a mess. It has devolved into one that has not played with urgency all year and has a sour aura surrounding it.

At least some of the men on the field blame manager Matt Williams, long seen as a strategic debacle, but now exposed as a flawed leader. General manager Mike Rizzo spent much of the downtrodden season defending Williams, but even he has cooled on the idea to the point where, whenever he is asked about Williams’ job security, he is publicly saying he will evaluate the entire team after the campaign. 

“It’s a terrible environment,” one player told Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post. “And the amazing part is everybody feels that way.”

Managers probably have less of an impact on wins and losses in baseball than they do in other team sports. Even Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson, a fiery skipper, understood the game is mostly an individual sport and that players affect the outcomes. Not managers.

Yet, when a manager is so “tense,” as Nationals players described Williams as being, minds can change.

“A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought it made any difference,” another player told Svrluga. “But after what we’ve been through for two years? It’s huge. Huge.”

Those quotes were published Saturday night, around the time the Mets eliminated the Nationals from the postseason. Both instances combined to likely finish off Williams’ tenure with the franchise, one that won him the league’s Manager of the Year honor last season.

The Nationals are not done being competitive. They still have a rotation fronted by Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg, a great pitching prospect in Lucas Giolito and they still have Harper, Rendon and other promising young position players like center fielder Michael Taylor and shortstop Trea Turner. Those players will help keep this franchise competitive in the immediate future.

The Mets and Nationals will likely have fierce battles for years to come, but this year’s will hardly be remembered as a competitive one. In the now, these are franchises headed in opposite directions, with one likely in the market for a new manager.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The fodder does not stop just because the number of relevant teams in this regular season has shrunk to about a dozen.

There was plenty of news in Major League Baseball this past week, and some of it was made by non-contending organizations such as the Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers, both of whom hired new general managers—Mike Hazen and David Stearns, respectively.

We won’t discuss those things in this week’s takeaways, but we should note that the moves are significant because Hazen and Stearns will guide their franchises for the next several years, and they could alter the landscapes of the American and National Leagues this coming offseason.

There was also the typical weekly news, like a meaningful injury, a declining player getting the nod over a hot up-and-coming one, another player trying to police an opponent and, of course, more questions and concerns about the New York Yankees’ rotation. 

Unfortunately, there was also the death of a baseball icon: Yogi Berra.

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Small stumbles can be unforgivable offenses when races are so close. 

The slightest advantage this late in the process can be too large to overcome. And if the competition is outpacing everyone else anyway, well then it becomes that man’s race to lose.

That is where David Price sits in the American League Cy Young Award competition this week after another dazzling down-the-stretch performance Monday against the New York Yankees. The Yankees are the team Price’s Toronto Blue Jays are trying to hold off in the AL East title hunt as they attempt to qualify for the postseason for the first time since 1993, when the franchise won its second consecutive World Series.

Against the Yankees, Price threw seven shutout innings, struck out seven and walked one. He allowed just two hits in a dominant performance that was cut short because of the 114 pitches it took him to weave it. He retired the final 14 batters who stepped into the box against him.

Is the AL Cy Young now David Price’s to lose? Leads the league in ERA, 4th in K’s & now 8-1 with #BlueJays – including 4-0 vs the #Yankees

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) September 22, 2015

In four starts against the Yankees as a Blue Jay, Price allowed five earned runs in 26.1 innings (1.71 ERA) and won the decision in three of the four starts—he is 3-1 versus the Yankees, despite the previous tweet. His overall ERA for the year is now an AL-best 2.34.

Toronto manager John Gibbons told reporters, per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet:

He’s been unbelievable, really. He’s 8-1 since we acquired him, that’s eight big wins, four times he’s faced these guys, the team we’re competing with right now, that’s not easy to do. What can you say really? That was the whole idea behind getting him. Trades don’t always work out right; this one has worked out right. … He’s [at the] top of the game, really.

While Price, who stands to rake in more than $200 million in free agency this offseason, might be at the top of the league’s starting pitcher heap, there are guys at his level or slightly below trying to pull him down.

The main one is Houston Astros ace Dallas Keuchel, who has earned that ace title over his last two seasons and pitched to a 2.51 ERA, 2.90 FIP and 1.023 WHIP this year. He is also 18-8 with a chance to win 20 games, and even though wins as a stat have been mostly discredited in this era, we still celebrate that milestone as a high level of excellence.

It is also possible that Keuchel’s stumble last week will cost him the Cy Young Award. In a start against the Texas Rangers in the Astros’ most critical series of the season, he lasted just 4.2 innings and was torched for nine runs, six of them in the first inning to sink his team before the Rangers even made three outs.

David Price can become only 2nd pitcher to win Cy Young for season in which he was traded, joining Rick Sutcliffe in ’84. (h/t STATS LLC)

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) September 22, 2015

Keuchel bounced back nicely against the Los Angeles Angels Monday, throwing 7.2 innings and allowing one run, but Price has had no need for such a redeeming outing since the end of April. That is a long-lost memory by now. In a race this close, how these guys throw in their final handful of starts is going to go a long way in voters’ minds, because, as we know, recent memory matters, as does making the playoffs.

There are other candidates in this race, although most of them sit on the fringes. Oakland’s Sonny Gray, Houston’s Scott Kazmir, Tampa Bay’s Chris Archer and Chicago’s Chris Sale all have reasonable cases for being on the ballot, but none of them have the goods to be ahead of Price or Keuchel.

This is now a two-man fight, and the combination of Keuchel’s slip and Price’s latest on-the-money haymaker put Price at the head of the class, a position he’s coveted since he broke in as a reliever with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008.

“He wanted to be the best,” Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey told John Tomase of WEEI.com Tuesday. “He wanted to be the best in the game. He didn’t want to be real good. He didn’t want to be the best on the team. He wanted to be the best pitcher in the game.”

The number of starts could change depending on when teams clinch and how they want to set up the rotations for the postseason, but as things currently stand, Price and Keuchel will each have two more starts before the end of the regular season. Price throws against the Rays twice, and Keuchel gets the Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Based on those opponents’ offensive production in the second half, Price has the tougher task to finish his campaign strongly enough to secure the award. If he handles the Rays twice in the span of five games—he’s made just one start against the Rays this season and allowed five runs in six innings in his final start with the Detroit Tigers—it should be enough to lock up the second Cy Young Award of his stellar career.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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The historic accolades are flowing in for Jake Arrieta.

And with those, the Chicago Cubs ace is setting himself up to bring in the big one—the National League Cy Young Award. 

Arrieta made Cubs history Tuesday night when he threw a complete-game shutout, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out 11 in another dominant performance. This one came against the lowly Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field, and it was closed out with a weak ground-ball out and a standing ovation from the home fans.

The win was Arrieta’s 20th of the year, making him the first Cubs pitcher to win that many in a single season since Jon Lieber did it in 2001.

“When a guy gets that opportunity and eventually does that, that’s something you can never take away from him,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon told reporters after the game, noting that five-man rotations and pitch counts work against such a milestone in this era. “Historically, you always look at the 20-game winners and what that means. I know in one sense it doesn’t really mean as much as people think. On a personal level and historically, there is a significance.”

Chicago Sun-Times‘ Chris De Luca shared the newspaper’s back page, highlighting Arrieta’s record-setting win:

Our back page on Jake Arrieta @JArrieta34 notching No. 20 #Cubs pic.twitter.com/BAbU1WDJc1

— Chris De Luca (@ChrisDeLuca) September 23, 2015

Arrieta also has a no-hitter this season to go with his 20 wins, and he is only the second pitcher to win 20 games for the franchise in the last 23 years (Greg Maddux did it in 1992) and the seventh Cub to accomplish the feat in the last 51 years. Tuesday’s performance was also Arrieta’s team-record 18th consecutive quality start.

While the win and quality start—which is defined by an outing of at least six innings and no more than three earned runs allowed—have been downgraded in this era of advanced metrics and better ways to gauge a pitcher’s contribution and value, the feats are still impressive.

“It just means I’ve put my team in positions to win ballgames,” Arrieta told reporters. “At the end of the day, that’s our goal, to try to pile on as many as we can, especially where we’re at in the season.” The team’s official Twitter account noted Arrieta set a franchise record for “consecutive quality starts”:

.@JArrieta34 has set a franchise record (dating back to 1914) with 18 consecutive quality starts. #LetsGo pic.twitter.com/Ov2CHaET01

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 23, 2015

Arrieta’s run-prevention prowess stands out in his ERA, which has now ducked further under 2.00. With a 1.88 mark, Arrieta could become the first Cubs starter to post a sub-2.00 ERA since Pete Alexander in 1920, per STATS, which was the start of the Live Ball Era but still a year in which pitchers dominated, as illustrated by FanGraphs.

Arrieta also joined his chief Cy Young competition, Los Angeles Dodgers co-ace Zack Greinke, as the only pitchers in the majors with ERAs below 2.00. If both hurlers stay in that rarified air, this would be the first season since 1985 in which two pitchers posted sub-2.00 ERAs.

“Maybe this winter, sitting in Austin, Texas, in some pub, he might let out a nice holler about the whole thing,” Maddon told reporters. “It’s quite an accomplishment, especially the way he’s doing it. It’s been pretty remarkable to watch.”

The Cy Young Award, for now at least, is still being hotly contested.

Greinke, the likely front-runner in the race at this point, has a lower ERA (1.65) than Arrieta, and entering Tuesday, he had a better strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.14 to 4.45), WHIP (0.85 to 0.92), strand rate (86.6 percent to 79.1), ERA+ (227 to 201) and Baseball-Reference.com wins above replacement (8.7 to 7.4).

However, because Arrieta has superior strikeouts numbers, he had a better FIP (2.51 to 2.77) and FanGraphs WAR (6.2 to 5.5). Both those stats put a heavy emphasis on strikeouts.

And if you really like strikeouts, Greinke’s teammate and the reigning NL MVP and Cy Young winner, Clayton Kershaw, is likely to snatch a strong percentage of the votes. He leads the league in fWAR, strikeouts per nine (11.39), strikeout rate (32.9 percent), FIP (2.09) and xFIP (2.17). He also has a 2.18 ERA that could drop into the Greinke-Arietta realm over his next couple of starts, giving us three starters with sub-2.00 ERAs in a single season.

Arrieta has something else going for him, though, even if people might not want to admit it. He is a Cub, arguably the most recognizable sports franchise in North America. He is also the underdog of the three favorites, and voters can sometimes lean in that direction.

So, because he plays for a popular team and is the surprise candidate, much in the way R.A. Dickey was with the New York Mets in 2012, Arrieta could get a good number of on-the-fence voters.

Make no mistake, though: He is a stellar candidate worthy of such an honor, more so than Dickey was when he surprisingly beat out Kershaw.

There are still two or three starts to be made by this trio of outstanding pitchers, and it might come down to their final outings before we know who is the winner.

For now, we can enjoy the show.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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With the good news came the bad news.

The St. Louis Cardinals received a boost to their playoff pitching picture on Monday, but the leaders in the National League Central also took what could end up being a significant hit to their lineup and defense.

Ace Adam Wainwright, believed to be shelved for the entire season after he ripped up his Achilles tendon coming out of the batter’s box on April 25, has been cleared to resume baseball activities. That gives the Cardinals hope that Wainwright could pitch for them out of the bullpen, as he did during their 2006 World Series run, during this postseason and possibly even before the end of the regular season.

The hurtful blow was losing catcher Yadier Molina, one of the premier defensive catchers in the sport, to a torn ligament in his left thumb. Molina will be sidelined for at least seven days and be reevaluated within the next week. If his prognosis does not improve, it is possible the Cardinals won’t have their starting catcher for the playoffs.

Molina does not need surgery, and the tear is less severe than the one Molina suffered last year in his right thumb, which ended up costing the seven-time All-Star 40 games. That is the encouraging part for the Cardinals.

If the Cardinals clinch the division, they would not play their first playoff game until Oct. 9. General manager John Mozeliak gave a status update after the game:

Mozeliak, “Molina has a slight torn ligament in his left thumb. We’re optimistic he’ll return this regular season.” pic.twitter.com/Fzji6y9och

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) September 21, 2015

“There’s a reason to have some optimism,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny told Jennifer Langosch of MLB.com. “When he slid into third base last year, there was instantly, ‘OK, this is going to be a while.’ That is not the same message we’re hearing right now. Right now, it’s not definitive that he’s going to be out for a long period of time, which, for us, is good news.”

The Cardinals need that, because if Molina is out for any significant time and has to miss some or all of the postseason, it is a crippling blow to not only the offense, but the pitching staff as well.

Molina is hitting .270/.310/.350 with four home runs and an 80 OPS+, his worst season since 2010. But Molina’s numbers in the postseason are good. He has hit .290/.344/.375 with a .719 OPS in 86 games (335 plate appearances). In a struggling Cardinals offense, that kind of production could end up being much needed by the time the playoffs roll around.

The bigger issue is losing Molina behind the plate. He has a stellar reputation for handling pitching staffs, blocking balls and controlling the running game as well as anyone who has ever put on the tools of ignorance.

This year’s Cardinals pitching staff had a major league-best 2.92 ERA entering Monday. When throwing to Molina, it has as 2.79 ERA. That goes up to 3.70 when throwing to Molina’s backup, Tony Cruz, who will be the starting catcher until Molina returns.

Losing Molina for any part of the postseason would greatly impact the team’s chances of advancing just based on how he works with the pitchers—the team’s biggest strength.

“Hands in the game of baseball are so important, whether it’s receiving or throwing, because you need them both to hit,” Mozeliak told Langosch. “We’ll see when we can start testing it from an offensive standpoint. In the meantime, we’ll look at different ways that we can help protect the hand.”

Wainwright’s return could soften the blow of losing Molina, assuming he’s out for any meaningful time. Wainwright is scheduled to throw a simulated game this coming weekend, but because of the time remaining in the season, he would not be stretched out enough to start.

That is fine for the Cardinals, because the last time Wainwright pitched out of the bullpen in the postseason, he was as dominant as a reliever could possibly be with a 0.00 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 9.2 innings, although he did blow a save in the World Series (yet ended up with the win).

That was in 2006, and if he is 100 percent healthy, 2015 could give the Cardinals that same kind of weapon next month.

“I think I would have a much higher confidence level to have him throw in-season before you would put him on the [playoff] roster,” Mozeliak told Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“He’s awfully optimistic. If you’ll recall last time he was in the bullpen, he was pretty good. I would imagine it would look just like that.”

If Wainwright were to be that good again, it would go a long way in absorbing the possible loss of Molina in the postseason. For now, the Cardinals are in the fluid state of wait-and-see.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com