It’s another big day for the AL Wild Card race, where 2 1/2 games separate the top five teams. While a massive tie is not as interesting in past years due to the abolition of play-off games, the probability of a five-way tie stands at 0.00006.

The Guardians take on the Blue Jays with Triston McKenzie facing Mitch White. McKenzie owns an excellent K to walk ratio, with 121 K and just 33 walks in 128 innings. White makes his second start since coming over from the Dodgers. Overall his ERA stands at 3.86, with a 3.68 mark in his starts.

The Orioles and Rays continue to play for the third Wild Card slot, with DL Hall making his major league debut against Shane McClanahan. No pressure there, as McClanahan should be one of the finalists for the Cy Young Award. Hall pitched 70 innings at AAA this season with a 4.76 ERA. He walks a ton of batters, but strikes out even more, 14.7 per innings at Norfolk. For an extreme K pitcher, he gave up more hits than I would expect, 60 in those 70 innings. McClanahan is at about the same number of innings as his rookie campaign last year. He allowed the same number of home runs, 14, but lowered his walk rate and raised his K rate to knock he ERA down 1.2 runs.

The Mets and Phillies continue their series with Aaron Nola on the mound against Jacob deGrom. Nola is 8-8 despite a 3.17 ERA. The Phillies score three runs or less in nine of his twenty two starts. deGrom makes his third start, and already struck out 18 in 10 2/3 innings. Batters only managed four hits and one walk against him.

Finally, the Brewers and Cardinals battle for the NL Central with Corbin Burnes facing Adam Wainwright. Burnes appears to be trading higher walk and home run rates for many fewer hits, resulting in a nearly identical ERA to last season, 2.45 in 2022 versus 2.43 in 2021. Wainwright goes for his 193rd win as he tries to reach 200 by the end of the season.

Enjoy!