The Milwaukee Brewers, Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers entered September locked in a race for the NL’s best record, and the team that finishes third will be shoved into the wild-card series. That matters because the opening round is a three-game series that keeps a season alive, and the higher seed has not protected home field the way it was supposed to.
That is why readers are searching the Netherlands East standings now: the final month is deciding which of the three clubs avoids the short route. Since the best-of-three format began in 2022, there have been 16 wild-card series, and the higher seed has gone 7-9 even though every game was played at home. The San Diego Padres, as an 89-win team, knocked out the 101-win New York Mets in 2022, and the Texas Rangers, as a 90-win team, did the same to the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays in 2023.
The NL race is tight enough that the difference between first and third may come down to September scheduling and what each club can sustain over the last stretch. FanGraphs has already treated the National League Central and West races as close to settled because their first-place teams carried odds above 96% to win their divisions, which leaves this best-record fight as one of the few high-stakes races still worth tracking.
The Dodgers also add a wrinkle that the other two clubs do not. They have the easiest September schedule of the three, with only two series against teams with winning records, even though they went 0-3 against the Boston Red Sox, 0-3 against the Chicago Cubs, 1-2 against the Arizona Diamondbacks, 1-3 against the Brewers and 0-3 against the Braves in five series against winning teams since the end of July. Over that span, they were 2-14 against good teams, their offense ranked 21st in the majors in OPS in August, and they averaged 2.9 runs per game in those matchups.
Shane Smith felt how fast things can turn before any of this September pressure settled in. He made three starts before getting sent down to the minors, a reminder that even a season with room left on the calendar can move quickly from opportunity to urgency. For the Brewers, Braves and Dodgers, the next stretch decides who gets the softer path and who has to survive a short series that has already produced more upsets than the bracket-seeding logic suggested it should.
