The Tiebreaker Runs the Other Way

Arizona and Atlanta played seven times this season, and Arizona won four of them, the last on August 16 at Truist Park. This morning, that is what stands between Atlanta and a postseason berth it would otherwise already hold.

The arithmetic is short. Atlanta is 89-64 with nine to play. The seventh-best record in the National League belongs to Arizona, 80-73, also with nine left, so Arizona can reach 89 wins and not one more. Six clubs go to October; Milwaukee and Los Angeles have clinched their divisions, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Diego can still pass 89, and Arizona can only match it. On September 10 I wrote that under this year's rules "a two-team tie goes to the club with the better head-to-head record," and that Atlanta had banked that against Philadelphia. The same rule, read the other way, is why a tie with Arizona at 89 would be Arizona's, why MLB's standings still list the berth as unclinched, and why the trackers at Yahoo and Just Baseball both read one as of this morning. One Atlanta win, or one Arizona loss.

Both are available tonight. First pitch at Daikin Park is 8:10; the Yankees and Arizona start at Chase Field at 9:40, ninety minutes later. Atlanta wins and it is done, whatever Phoenix does. Atlanta loses and Arizona loses, and it is done anyway, perhaps after the Houston game has ended. Atlanta loses and Arizona wins, and the number is still one on Saturday. The division is a separate ledger: four games clear of Philadelphia, still five by MLB's count, and no pair of results tonight can close it. Four up with nine to play is not a crisis, and one result short of a berth is not a division title.

The ball goes to Tyler Mahle, as listed. He came from San Francisco on Sunday, August 2, in a trade for the right-hander Anthony Molina, with 18 starts, a 3-9 record and a 5.13 ERA behind him. In seven starts for Atlanta he is 3-1 with a 1.25: 43 1/3 innings, 34 hits, six earned runs, six walks, 38 strikeouts, and six quality starts of the seven. His last start, Saturday against Philadelphia, was seven innings on 97 pitches, six hits, one run, no walks. Both halves are his, and the season line, 6-10 with a 3.91, is simply their sum.

The 1.25 is lower than any full-season mark of his career, and the nearest is last year's 2.18 across 16 starts for Texas, a full season against seven starts, which is the whole caveat. Alex Anthopoulos, the president of baseball operations, said on the day of the trade, per the AJC, that Mahle "throws strikes"; six walks in 43 1/3 innings is what that has looked like. He turns 32 on September 29, the day the Wild Card Series begin.

Houston lists Peter Lambert, 29, who is 8-9 with a 3.71 in 26 starts and has not won since July 11, eleven starts ago, 0-4 with seven no-decisions since. Houston released him from a minor-league deal on March 24, signed him back on March 27 and selected his contract on April 17; he spent 2025 in Japan with the Yakult Swallows, per MLB Trade Rumors. The Astros are 77-76, first in the American League West by a game over Texas with nine to play, and by record a game behind Cleveland for the last wild card, though MLB's table does not rank division leaders there. This is their final home series, six of their last nine are on the road, and they played Thursday, Houston 6, Kansas City 2, while Atlanta sat. The clubs have not met this season.

Tonight is the first of the six road games left, and Tuesday's sentence about the offense stays where it is. Grant Holmes and Martín Pérez are listed for Saturday and Sunday, and nothing is listed after that.

So Atlanta may clinch its place in October behind a pitcher it took on for a reliever in August, or with its own game over while a game in Phoenix finishes without it. The table does not mark the manner. By MLB's count, and by Arizona's four games to three, one result is what remains, and the first of the two chances belongs to Mahle.