Five teams for Red Sox fans to monitor in crowded AL Wild Card race originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

It’s the final week of September, and Boston Red Sox fans are officially on Standings Watch.

That’s a welcome change from the past three seasons, when the Red Sox didn’t play any meaningful baseball past Labor Day. But October baseball in 2025 is far from guaranteed for Alex Cora’s club, which sits precariously in the second American League Wild Card spot after dropping its series finale to the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.

FanGraphs pegs Boston’s postseason chances at 90.3 percent as of Monday afternoon. But a lot can change between now and Sunday, a six-game stretch that features two series against current division leaders — the Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers — to finish the regular season.

So, what exactly does Standings Watch entail for the Red Sox? First, we’ll take a look at the Wild Card standings as of Monday. Then we’ll highlight five teams that Sox fans should monitor this week as a tight AL playoff picture shakes out.

AL Wild Card standings

The New York Yankees own a three-game lead over Boston for the top Wild Card spot. If the season ended Monday, the Yankees would host a three-game Wild Card series vs. the Red Sox, with every game at Yankee Stadium.

The Cleveland Guardians and Houston Astros are both just one game back of Boston, however. Only three Wild Card teams make the playoffs, so assuming the Yankees keep the top spot, either Cleveland, Houston or Boston will be eliminated.

!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}})}();

Here’s a more in-depth look at the Red Sox’ top competitors in the AL Wild Card race, sorted from best to worst record:

New York Yankees

• Record: 88-68
• Games ahead of Red Sox: +3.0
• Remaining schedule: vs. Chicago White Sox, vs. Baltimore Orioles

The schedule gods clearly favor the Yankees, who close out the regular season with three-game series against two of the worst teams in the AL. So, barring a complete collapse, New York should have the top Wild Card spot wrapped up by the weekend. (But a complete collapse would be fun, wouldn’t it?)

Seattle Mariners

• Record: 87-69
• Games ahead of Red Sox: +2.0
• Remaining schedule: vs. Colorado Rockies, vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

The Mariners took control of the AL West with a weekend sweep of the Astros and now lead Houston by three games.

Assuming they take care of business vs. the Rockies and take at least one game from the Dodgers, they should win the AL West crown. But they’d slide into the Wild Card race if Houston overtakes them, so keep one eye on Seattle this week.

Detroit Tigers

• Record: 85-71
• Games ahead of Red Sox: 0
• Remaining schedule: at Cleveland Guardians, at Red Sox

The Tigers are a sneaky team to watch. The Guardians are on an absolute tear (10-1 in their last 11 games), and if they win this upcoming series with their AL Central rivals, the Tigers will bump down to the Wild Card race.

That could set up a weekend showdown vs. the Red Sox at Fenway Park (Friday to Sunday) with massive implications for Wild Card seeding on the line.

Cleveland Guardians

• Record: 84-72
• Games behind Red Sox: -1.0
• Remaining schedule: vs. Detroit Tigers, vs. Texas Rangers

As mentioned above, the Guardians are coming in HOT. So if you’re a Red Sox fan, you may want to root for Cleveland winning its series vs. Detroit to bump the Tigers — who are 1-9 in their last 10 games — into the Wild Card mix.

If the Tigers win their upcoming series vs. the Guardians, the Red Sox will need to take advantage with at least one or two wins in Toronto to maintain their narrow lead over Cleveland.

Houston Astros

• Record: 84-72
• Games behind Red Sox: -1.0
• Remaining schedule: at Athletics, at Los Angeles Angels

The Astros had a brutal weekend, but they shouldn’t be completely ruled out, especially with two series against the AL West’s cellar dwellers to finish their season. It’s worth noting, however, that Houston is just 4-5 versus the A’s this season and 6-4 versus the Angels.

The good news for Boston: The Red Sox own head-to-head tiebreakers over both the Astros and Guardians.

For a while it looked as if the kid pitchers might save the season and even make a deep October run more feasible. But now, with a Wild Card berth slipping away from the Mets, the instant success of their three rookies in recent weeks is beginning to look more like a consolation prize of sorts for what suddenly looms as a disappointing finish. 

Albeit an important one, to be sure.

That is, if the Mets’ collapse leaves them out of the postseason, at least they would go into the offseason feeling as if they have the makings of a dominant starting rotation next year and beyond.

Such is the sense of hope the trio of Nolan McLean, Brandon Sproat, and Jonah Tong provide for Mets fans in what otherwise could be a long winter of demanding answers from David Stearns as to what went wrong this season.

“If they don’t get there, there’s no way to sugarcoat it,” an MLB scout said on Monday. “With their payroll and the high expectations, missing a six-team postseason would be a major failure. But those young pitchers would give them something to hang their hat on as far as changing the conversation.

“They’ve been impressive, to different degrees. You need to see more but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that potentially they give you a high-ceiling nucleus for a starting rotation.”

That’s the consensus opinion from scouts and evaluators I spoke to in recent days, as well as former pitchers Ron Darling and Dan Plesac, for this story after McLean, Sproat, and Tong have lived up to the hype as highly-touted prospects in recent weeks.

Without them, especially McLean, the Mets almost certainly would be out of the Wild Card race, as the rest of the rotation has fallen apart, due to injury and underperformance.

For that matter, if the Mets do still find a way into that third Wild Card spot, Darling didn’t hesitate when I asked him on Sunday at Citi Field about who the starters should be in a Wild Card series.

“McLean is the best option and Sproat is right behind him,” Darling said. “Maybe (David) Peterson would get the nod just because of the experience, but the question you have to ask, if you’re being honest and not trying to do some tactical BS, is who gives you the best chance to win. Right now it’s the young guys.

“With McLean it’s obvious, but Sproat has impressed me too. I thought he was going to be Spencer Strider, 100 percent on every pitch, gripping it and ripping it. There’s a lot more nuance as far as the art of pitching, that I’m really happy to see.”

Darling referred to McLean’s impact as “obvious,” and indeed his performance to this point, with his 1.27 ERA in seven starts speaks for itself. But it’s the way he pitches, combining mound presence with his ability to create movement with various pitches, that has so many observers falling hard for him.

Plesac, for example, pitched in the big leagues for 18 years. And he’s been an analyst at MLB Network for 17 years, breaking down success and failure on a nightly basis, so he’s pretty much seen it all. Yet he’s so captivated by McLean that he gets some ribbing for it from his colleagues.

“From the first time I saw him pitch I was ultra-impressed,” Plesac said by phone recently. “One time on our show I was going on about him to the point where (host) Greg Amsinger says, ‘Geez, you’ve got a man-crush on this guy.’

“I just love everything about the way he pitches, his poise, his ability to throw breaking balls behind in the count, his slow heartbeat that keeps the game from speeding up on him. He is so advanced for a guy who just got to the big leagues. As a former pitcher, he’s the guy I want on the mound in a big game.”

To that end, Darling makes note of McLean’s background as an all-around athlete good enough to be recruited as a quarterback by Oklahoma State, where he red-shirted at the position for one year before deciding to play only baseball – as both a position player and pitcher.

“His maturity on the field stands out,” Darling said. “There’s something to be said for a kid who played big-time football as a quarterback, a leadership position. He has a presence about him that you don’t see often for a guy who just reached the big leagues.”

Scouts I spoke to echoed such sentiments.

“He’s a scout’s dream,” was the way one put it. “You don’t need a radar gun to evaluate him. He throws hard but he doesn’t chase velocity. His ability to spin the ball separates him but he also gets great movement on his two-seamer. He knows what he’s doing out there, setting up hitters, pitching to spots. He’s fun to watch.”

As such, the Mets might just have a true No. 1 starter for years to come. Sproat doesn’t generate quite as much excitement from observers, but he too has elite stuff, and as Darling noted, has shown nuance, demonstrating an ability to change speeds and throw his breaking stuff for strikes, in addition to his upper-90s fastball velocity.

Speaking of both Sproat and McLean, Darling said, “At their level of experience, these guys can spin it as well as I’ve ever seen. David Cone was the best guy I ever saw at being able to spin the ball, and I’m hesitant to put them in that category already but they remind me of him.”

And then there’s Tong, the youngest of the three rookies, at age 22, with only two starts at Triple-A before being called up. His inexperience has shown at times, to the point where he had that rough start against the Texas Rangers, failing to get out of the first inning, but in that regard his strong bounce back start last week against the San Diego Padres was an important sign.

“He showed some backbone,” said Plesac. “I know what that’s like, being out there as a young pitcher and nothing is working for you. The speed of the game at the big league level is so different than the minor leagues, and when you compound that with coming up late in the season in a pennant race, it’s hard.

“That’s why I was so happy to see him bounce back. I think he’s got a gigantic ceiling. It just might take him a little longer to get there than the other two guys. He has to attack the strike zone. When he does that, and he’s using all his pitches, you see the swings and misses he gets with his fastball.”

Adds a scout:

“Tong has real deception with that delivery, the Tim Lincecum delivery. He’s got that big induced vertical break that everyone talks about now that gives his fastball the extra ride at the top the zone. He found out big league hitters can hit that pitch, though, if they’re sitting on it, so he needs to be able to throw his curve ball and changeup for strikes. When he does that he may be able to dominate the way he did in the minors.”

All in all, then, there is plenty of reason to believe the young trio can have long-term success.

For one thing, as Plesac noted, “You watch all three of them and one thing I notice is when they miss their location, for the most part they don’t miss over the plate. They miss off the plate, to the side of the (catcher’s) glove. They’re not just spraying the ball all over the place, relying on velocity.

“Whoever has worked with them coming up through the Mets’ system, especially McLean and Sproat, they deserve a pat on the back, because those guys certainly learned how to pitch in the minor leagues. And the experience they’re getting in these high-pressure games right now, it will be invaluable for them going into next year.”

So even if this season ends in failure, emergence of this young pitching may be remembered for launching a new era for the Mets. It doesn’t always work out, of course, for anyone who remembers the much-hyped Generation K of the early ‘90s, or even the 2015 staff that seemed to offer so much promise beyond the 2015 World Series.

But Darling was quick to point to the success of the 1980s, when he was part of the young pitching group that included Doc Gooden, Sid Fernandez, and Rick Aguilera, that helped usher in a championship era.

“I think the Mets are in a good spot going forward with these young pitchers,” Darling said. “This organization has always had waves of good pitchers. I think that’s how people felt in ’84, and that turned into something special.

“It’s not often that they all pan out, but I wish that for these guys. They have the ability. Everybody talks about the need to make adjustments as hitters see you more, but I never felt like I had to make adjustments. I felt like if I took care of my own house, my stuff was good enough, and these guys should feel the same way. The hitter should be inconsequential to these guys if they execute pitches — that’s how good their stuff is.

“I mean, right now, you’d have to see all three of them in the rotation next year.”

That’s an enticing thought. It’s also worth remembering that Christian Scott showed similar promise as a rookie in 2024 before needing Tommy John surgery, and could be part of that high-ceiling future as well.

With that in mind, an executive from an AL team made perhaps the most salient point about the big-picture state of the Mets, regardless of what happens in this final week of the season.

“More than ever,” the exec said, “the most precious commodity in the game is young, home-grown starting pitching, and to have three young guys come up at the same time and get results in high-leverage games and show the potential for long-term success. … that’s at the top of every organization’s wish list.”

Nothing goes together like sports fans and saying “this is the year” when it almost certainly is not — a tradition the Knicks’ faithful haven’t genuinely participated in for decades. 

However, coming off their first Conference Finals trip of the millennium with a new coach and bolstered depth, New York is giving its fans a real chance to capture this timeless delusion.

While usually safer to lower expectations, the Knicks are in a real place to compete and believe they can win their first championship in over 50 years. 

Here are the reasons fans should think this is the year…

The talent is there and ready to be maximized 

Let’s not forget these Knicks came an unlucky bounce and one win away from making the Finals last year, while going through the ringer in the physical Pistons, champion Celtics and eventual runner-up Pacers. They’ve returned largely the same roster, with a coaching change and some depth additions that should assure the roster is reaching its potential.

It didn’t feel that way last year and the numbers reflected it. No Jalen Brunson-led, Karl-Anthony Towns-spaced offense should finish 16th in offensive rating post Jan. 1 — or seventh in the playoffs. And Mike Brown was brought in to help turn that around.

Assuming he adds the necessary offensive zest without jeopardizing the defense, it’s hard to find better rosters on paper. New York has two top players at its respective positions and multiple borderline All-Star level guys to support them, with some of the best bench pieces in the league when productive. 

Add onto that Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele and you have the total package. These two not only bring strong individual production, but address specific needs that should keep the returning rotation in their ideal roles and fresher overall. 

The East is vulnerable

This isn’t just about how ready the Knicks are to win it all, but how unprepared the rest of their conference is. Make no mistake, anybody is susceptible in a seven-game series, but not having to seriously worry about the usual major threats inspires confidence.

The Pacers and Celtics, arguably the two biggest obstacles in the Knicks’ way, will be going into this season without their best players — Tyrese Haliburton and Jayson Tatum — who both suffered Achilles tears during the postseason. 

Without them, these two teams aren’t title contenders, and their front offices appeared to operate from that mindset this offseason, so don’t expect these guys to get rushed back, either.

Cleveland has been lurking as a top seed and high-talent threat for years, but can’t seem to win a pivotal playoff series to take them over the hump. They’ve doubled down this season and look to be New York’s biggest foe, but they’ll have to prove it first.

Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid are still in the conference, but their teams are loaded with question marks coming off disappointing seasons. 

Milwaukee may fall victim to a Giannis trade request once he gets a feel of Myles Turner as his second best player, and the 76ers need to prove they can stay relatively healthy for more than a couple of weeks.

Chips will be on shoulders

For the reasons above, the Knicks are going to be expected to compete for a championship — both internally and externally. 

This makes 2025-26 an especially pivotal one for a franchise that’s really been in a rebuilding phase until maybe last season.

Now is the time to actually win, everybody knows it, and they’ve all got a ton to prove in that pursuit. 

Despite All-NBA honors and postseason domination, Brunson is constantly dismissed in top player conversations and is still having to cement his eliteness like a plucky underdog.

Like every Towns year of the past five seasons, he looked shaky defensively in the postseason and some still questioned whether a team could win with him. Mikal Bridges is tied to the pick price it took to acquire him, a value only deemed fair once he’s helped deliver a championship.

OG Anunoby signed the biggest contract in Knicks history after they traded two homegrown, fan favorite pieces to get him. Leon Rose, the man who brought all these guys together, fired the coach who helped get them here to prove this team can win it all, and the entire legacy of his era now rests on that bet. 

And don’t think Brown isn’t looking to prove his championship mettle. After falling short with LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, he wants to show it was the fault of his stars and not his coaching.