The Milwaukee Brewers, Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers are heading into September in a race that will decide more than bragging rights. put them at the center of the National League chase for the best record, and the team that finishes third will be sent to the wild-card series.
That matters because the wild-card series is only a three-game series, and the higher seed has gone 7-9 in 16 such series since the format began in 2022. The setup has already produced shocks, with the San Diego Padres knocking out the 101-win New York Mets in 2022 and the Texas Rangers beating the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays in 2023. For the club that slips to third, the prize for a strong season is a shorter path with no room to waste a bad night.
The Dodgers are the team most likely to be watched closely because their place in the race comes with a warning label. They have lost all five series against winning teams since the end of July, gone 2-14 against winning teams over the past month and averaged 2.9 runs per game in those matchups. In August, they ranked 21st in the majors in OPS, even though their September schedule is the easiest of the three contenders, with only two series against teams with winning records.
That uneven stretch does not erase the standing of the club, but it does explain why the race is suddenly about more than record totals. 's list of six playoff races for the final month left out the American League wild-card chase and the National League Central and West division races, a sign that the battle at the top of the NL is the one with the clearest postseason consequence. FanGraphs has the first-place teams in the National League Central and National League West above 96% to win their divisions, which narrows the spotlight even further.
Shohei Ohtani sits at the center of that Dodgers push, and he is also the exception in a rotation that described as mostly back to full health. The question now is not whether Los Angeles can stay in the conversation. It is whether the team with the easiest September path can do enough to avoid the third spot and the short route that has tripped up better seeds before.
