Heading into Tuesday evening, the San Francisco Giants hold a two-game lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West with six regular-season games remaining. In other words, even if the Dodgers were to win out the season, they would need the Giants to lose two of their remaining six games just to tie them.

However, if this were to happen, MLB’s tiebreaker rules would come into play as follows:

• The Giants and Dodgers would play a one-game playoff to determine which team wins the NL West and which team would have to play the NL Wild Card game.
• By virtue of having won the season series 10-9, the Giants would host a one-game playoff at Oracle Park on October 4, 2021 – the day after the regular season ends.
• The winner of that game would be the number one seed in the National League.
• The loser of that game would host the second Wild Card team on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.

If it doesn’t happen, the Giants will be the NL West champions for the first time since 2012, with the Dodgers having won the next eight.

Now for the not-so-good news.

Although both teams finish their respective regular seasons at home, beginning Tuesday night, the Dodgers open a three-game series against the NL West third-place San Diego Padres (albeit a now distant third place), followed by a three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers, who clinched the NL Central Division title on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Giants open a three-game series against the NL West (very) last-place Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night, followed by a three-game series against those same (distant) third-place San Diego Padres.

Do you see where this is going?

All of this said, I am reminded of one of the greatest sayings in professional sports:

“Any team can beat any other team on any given day.”

Play Ball!

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