MLB playoff picture: Padres and Guardians clinch, Rangers and Astros still tied at 79-80 with three left

San Diego and Cleveland are in. The Padres won 4-2 at the Dodgers on Thursday to reach 89-70, and the Guardians won 1-0 at Boston to reach 83-76. Each needed one win and got it itself. Four American League clubs are now certain of a place: Tampa Bay, the Yankees, Boston and Cleveland. One of the two places left belongs to the West champion, still Texas or Houston, level at 79-80, and Chicago (82-77) needs one more win to take the other. In the National League, San Diego joins Milwaukee, the Dodgers and Atlanta, leaving the Cubs, Philadelphia and Arizona for the last two places.

Every figure below comes from the standings after all 12 games of Thursday, September 24 (US time), had finished, run through the same engine that fills the tables on this site. Our previous piece left two questions open, whether the next result would put Cleveland in and whether it would put San Diego in, and both were settled the most direct way, with a win. Clinch numbers assume every rival wins out and tragic numbers assume every rival loses out, so none of it is a projection or a probability.

The West took the branch the last piece described for a night on which both clubs win. Texas beat the Mets 3-1 at home, Houston won 7-5 at the Athletics, and the two are level again at 79-80 with three games each to play. Neither has a clinch number, and both tragic numbers are 3, every game each has left. Three wins take either club to 82-80, exactly where the other finishes by winning out, and this board puts the judged club at the bottom of any tie, so neither can clinch on its own. The 3 comes from the opposite table. If Houston loses out it finishes 79-83, and Texas drops out only by losing all three to finish level with it, with the tie counted against Texas and Chicago's floor of 82-80 out of reach for a wild card. Houston's 3 is the mirror. Houston is marked inside the field on today's table, but between identical records that is only an order, and each club can finish anywhere from fifth to ninth in the league. The next night splits three ways. A split gives the winner a clinch number and a division number of 2, every game it would have left, and cuts the loser's tragic number to 1. If both win they are level at 80-80, and if both lose they are level at 79-81. Either way both tragic numbers fall to 2, and two losses would also put Chicago in.

The two do not meet again. Texas finishes with three at Minnesota and Houston with three at the Athletics, so any finish on the same number of wins leaves the West tied. The same arithmetic brackets the champion's record. With 79 wins and three games left each, the West will be won at 82-80 at best and 79-83 at worst, and only a three-game sweep finishes above .500. Without one, the best either club can reach is 81-81. Under the seeding rules on the postseason page, a division winner is still seeded ahead of every wild card. A level finish is settled on paper, and the first term, as our piece on seeding and tiebreakers explains, is the season series between the two clubs, already fixed now that no meetings are left. This board does not compute official tiebreakers, so on any level finish it will show both clubs as out, each at the bottom of its own tie, though one of them will have won the division.

Chicago won 9-1 at Kansas City to reach 82-77, and its number fell from 2 to 1. That 1 does not have to come from Chicago. The White Sox already have 82 wins, and the first time Texas or Houston loses, the West club left over for the wild card can reach no more than 81. So one Chicago win or any single Texas or Houston loss puts Chicago in. Only a Chicago loss on a night both West clubs win leaves the White Sox waiting, and only that combination three nights running leaves them without a clinch at the end. All three would then finish 82-80. Two of them would be in, one as West champion and one as the last wild card, and MLB's tiebreakers would decide which club takes which place and which is left out. This board would show all three as out.

Cleveland is in whatever happens in the Central, so for the Guardians the division decides only whether they enter as champion, seeded ahead of every wild card, or as a wild card. Cleveland leads by a game, and its division number is 3, every game it has left, down from 4. Chicago winning out would reach 85 wins, and Cleveland needs 86 to get clear. Chicago has no division number. These two do not meet either: Cleveland finishes with three at Kansas City and Chicago with three at home to Colorado. A Cleveland win and a Chicago loss on the same night would cut Cleveland's number to 1, and either result on its own would cut it to 2. A Chicago win and a Cleveland loss would leave them level at 83-77 and blank it. Cleveland can finish anywhere from third to fifth in the league, Chicago from third to seventh. Above them the order is partly fixed. Tampa Bay lost 6-4 at the Yankees but will finish with the league's best record whatever happens, and the Yankees (92-67) with the second best. Boston (85-74) can finish anywhere from third to fifth.

In the National League, the Cubs beat Miami 2-1 at home to reach 88-71 and need one more win, down from two. Philadelphia lost 5-1 at home to Milwaukee, is 87-72 and still needs two. Arizona won 12-8 at Colorado to reach 85-74, and its tragic number is still 1. A win cannot move it: as our piece on Arizona's tragic number set out, the ceiling, now 88 wins, already assumes Arizona wins out. The number is set by the floors above, 88-74 for the Cubs and 87-75 for Philadelphia if they lost out. So the next Arizona loss, which drops the ceiling to 87, puts the Cubs in, because 88 clears 87, and puts Arizona out, because 87 only draws level with Philadelphia's floor. A level finish counts against the judged club on both sides, so Philadelphia would still need a win: level with Arizona is not clear of it. A Philadelphia win closes the door from the other end. It lifts the Phillies' floor to 88, level with Arizona's ceiling, so Arizona is out, but the Cubs and Phillies both stay at 1, each only level with that 88. Until one of them clears it, the board can show Arizona out and two clubs not yet in, with nobody left to take their places. A Cubs win settles only the Cubs, and an Arizona win on its own moves nothing. Arizona finishes with three at San Diego, already in, the Cubs with three at Boston and Philadelphia with three at home to Tampa Bay. San Diego can finish anywhere from fourth to sixth in the league, the Cubs and Philadelphia from fourth to seventh, Arizona from fifth to seventh.

At the top, Milwaukee won 5-1 at Philadelphia to reach 100-59, and the Dodgers' loss to San Diego left them 97-62, three games back with three to play. Winning out would take the Dodgers to 100 wins, level with where Milwaukee already stands, and a tie counts against the judged club, so both can still finish first or second in the league. One more Milwaukee win or one more Dodgers loss settles the best record for Milwaukee. Atlanta lost 7-6 at home to Cincinnati and is 93-66. The last piece had the Braves finishing second or third. With a ceiling of 96 wins they can no longer reach the Dodgers' 97, so they will finish third.

Update, September 29: The regular season is over. In the West the three branches set out in this piece came one per night. On Friday both clubs lost and were level at 79-81, on Saturday both won and were level at 80-81, and on Sunday Houston won 9-0 at the Athletics while Texas lost 6-4 at Minnesota, so Houston took the division at 81-81. Chicago beat Colorado 6-1 on Friday on a night both West clubs lost, so all three of its clinching results arrived at once. Cleveland took the Central on Saturday, winning 11-5 at Kansas City while Chicago lost 9-6 to Colorado. In the National League, Arizona's 10-7 loss at San Diego on Saturday put the Cubs in and Arizona out on this board in one go, and Philadelphia, as this piece said, still needed a win after that; it beat Tampa Bay 7-3 on Sunday. All 14 clubs given a rank range here finished inside it. Baltimore at the Yankees on Sunday was canceled. The final standings, seeds and Wild Card Series matchups are in the next piece. What to watch is short. In the American League, one Chicago win or one loss by either West club puts Chicago in, and a split result between Texas and Houston gives the winner a clinch number of 2. In the National League, one Cubs win or one Arizona loss puts the Cubs in, and one Arizona loss or one Philadelphia win ends Arizona's season on this board. An Arizona loss and a Philadelphia win on the same night would complete the field. The remaining fixtures are on the schedule page, results land on the live table, and what any single result would change is on the what-if page.

How to read these numbers. A clinch or magic number is the minimum further wins that guarantee a postseason place even if every rival wins every remaining game. A tragic number is the further losses after which a place is impossible even if the club wins every remaining game. Zero means it is done, and a blank means no run of that club's own results can settle it. In MLB this board puts the judged club at the bottom of every tie on its own final table, on both sides of the count, so a clinch here can trail the official announcement and an elimination can be called on a tie the league would break on paper. Official tiebreakers and head-to-head fixtures are not part of the calculation. Club figures are on the magic number page, the bracket and seeding rules on the postseason page, the arithmetic on the methodology page, and each club's own answer on its team page: San Diego, Cleveland, the White Sox, Texas, Houston, the Cubs, Philadelphia, Arizona.