September in Major League Baseball is when storylines stop being storylines and start being decided. With the regular season winding down, here’s what’s actually on the line across both leagues.
Yordan Alvarez is chasing a Triple Crown
No player has led their league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs in the same season since Miguel Cabrera did it in 2012. Yordan Alvarez enters September tied with Junior Caminero at 37 home runs, leading the league outright in RBIs with 94, and hitting .316. All three numbers are his to lose over the final weeks, and a Triple Crown run this rare tends to pull attention away from everything else in the sport — deservedly.
Ohtani’s uncharacteristic slump
The season’s presumptive MVP has hit a rough patch at the worst time. Shohei Ohtani was shut down with left knee soreness, right biceps issues, and general body concerns, and enters September with just six hits in his last 42 at-bats and no home runs since August 18. How he closes the season, health permitting, will matter for both his own award case and the Dodgers’ playoff positioning.
Pete Crow-Armstrong’s quiet historic season
The Cubs outfielder is having one of the more remarkable seasons in baseball with far less noise around it than it deserves. At 9.3 WAR with 38 home runs and 32 stolen bases, Crow-Armstrong needs just two more homers and eight more steals to join the 40-40 club — a list with fewer than ten members in MLB history — while also chasing a rare 10-WAR season.
The wild card scrums
Both leagues have genuinely messy wild card races heading into the final stretch. In the AL, the Yankees and Red Sox hold the top two wild card spots with the Guardians close behind, while the Orioles, Rangers, Blue Jays, and Twins are bunched together fighting for the last berth. In the NL, the Padres and Diamondbacks are locked at 5-5 in their season series, with a final-weekend series at Petco Park likely to decide who gets in.
Division races still in motion
The AL West remains surprisingly open, with the Astros sitting barely above .500 and still able to win it. In the NL East, the Braves lead the Phillies by four games despite Philadelphia posting the best record in baseball for August — a reminder that a hot final month can still flip a division. And in the AL East, the Yankees trail the Rays by 4½ games with a crucial four-game series still to come in late September.