MILWAUKEE — One playoff berth remains up for grabs heading into the final day of Major League Baseball’s regular season.
The Cincinnati Reds will earn the National League’s third and final wild card if they beat the Milwaukee Brewers or the New York Mets lose to the host Miami Marlins on Sunday. A New York victory and a Cincinnati loss would send the Mets to the playoffs instead.
The Reds, who are third in the NL Central Division, and the Mets, who are second in the NL East, have identical 83-78 records. Cincinnati owns the head-to-head tiebreaker because it won four of its six meetings with the Mets this season.
“If you could have promised us this in spring training, I think everybody would sign up for it every year,” Reds closer Emilio Pagán said Saturday night after his team’s 7-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, the Central champions. “As cool as it is to clinch ahead of time and kind of know where you’re at, to have every single game be this meaningful is a gift. It doesn’t come around often. Hopefully we can make the most of it.”
Whichever team earns that last playoff berth hits the road to face the Los Angeles Dodgers — the 2024 World Series champions and this year’s NL West winners — in a best-of-three series in the wild-card round that starts Tuesday.