A look at Braves’ postseason seed scenarios
The Braves have wrapped up the National League East. What’s next?
The team has six games remaining: three against the Reds at Truist Park, beginning Tuesday, and then three this weekend in Miami. The Braves will prioritize health and preparation for the postseason.
They’ll enter play Tuesday at 92-64, possessing the No. 3 seed in the National League. They’d host the No. 6 seed for a best-of-three Wild Card series at Truist Park next week if the status quo remains.
Milwaukee (98-58) is trying to clinch the No. 1 seed and the Dodgers (96-60) are behind them. It’s extremely unlikely, but the Braves could earn the No. 1 seed by winning out while Milwaukee loses out (against the Phillies and Cardinals) and the Dodgers win just two or fewer times. In that scenario, the Braves would top the Brewers via intradivision tiebreaker.
Consider that a pie-in-the-sky scenario.
The Braves have an outside shot at obtaining the No. 2 seed, which would come with a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the National League Division Series, but it’d take a lot going their way. FanGraphs gives the Braves just a 0.9% chance of earning a first-round bye.
The Dodgers host the red-hot Padres for three games this week and finish with three games against the lowly Giants in San Francisco. The Braves hold the tiebreaker, having gone 5-1 against the Dodgers head-to-head, but it’d take a phenomenal finish and the Dodgers stumbling to earn the second seed.
If the Braves won out, that would put them at 98 wins. They’d need the Dodgers to go 2-4. The Braves could also take the second seed if they went 5-1 while the Dodgers went 1-5. If the Dodgers split their six games, it wouldn’t matter if the Braves won out.
One more small path: If Milwaukee lost its remaining six games while the Braves won out and the Dodgers won three or more games, the Braves would secure the No. 2 seed over the Brewers.
Again, any of those outcomes is extremely unlikely but not mathematically impossible. So by far the likeliest result here is the Braves are playing in the Wild Card series next week.
Right now, the Braves would host the No. 6 Phillies (86-70) in that series. The Braves went 9-4 against Philadelphia this season, but the Phillies eliminated the Braves in consecutive postseasons just a few years ago.
It might come down to the weekend, though, to see who comes to Atlanta. The Cubs and Padres are tied for the first two wild cards (87-69), with the Phillies just a game behind them. So it could be any of those three coming here, and all present different challenges.
The NL Wild Card series will begin Sept. 29 and be played over two or three (if necessary) days. The NLDS will begin Oct. 3.