Baseball

With one day remaining in the 2013 Major League Baseball regular season, one race is undecided. Heading into play on Sunday, the Cleveland Indians, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers all control their respective destinies on the path to an American League Division Series date with the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park late next week.

Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips was forced out of Saturday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates after fouling a ball off of his leg in the bottom of the fifth inning.

In the midst of an awful season, the San Francisco Giants made a preemptive strike to secure their future place in the NL West standings by agreeing to re-sign right fielder Hunter Pence to a five-year, $90 million contract on Saturday.

The New York Mets are a franchise that has struggled to develop a sense of consistency in any area of the organization. From injury-prone stars to changes up top, the Mets have been in a constant state of turmoil for the better part of a decade.

The Mets took a major step toward assuring a change for the better by signing manager Terry Collins to a two-year contract extension, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post:

The St. Louis Cardinals, having won their division for the seventh time in the past 14 years, head into the playoffs facing some fierce competition.

They don’t call it the wild card for nothing.

This year’s American League Wild Card race has three teams left fighting for two spots in the Wild Card Game. The Cleveland Indians and Tampa Bay Rays currently sit one game above the Texas Rangers, but anything can happen in the closing days of the season.

One of the few bright spots in the San Francisco Giants' failure to repeat as World Series champions this year has been the play of outfielder Hunter Pence.

Even if a team loses in the division series, it was worth it just to make it to the MLB postseason.

That's what four teams are going to be saying in a couple of weeks after they're bounced out of the playoffs in the opening series.

Since it's decided over five games rather than seven, the division series offers a much greater chance of seeing the better teams making quick exits.

There's the slightest of chills creeping into the air, football is once again dominating Sundays and, at least in a few American League cities, the tension of a Wild Card race inserts itself into everyday living. 

The MLB postseason is nearly upon us, folks.

The American League Wild Card race may not be over yet, but the National League playoff picture is finally set, and we can begin making our predictions for that entire half of the playoff bracket. 

The Wild Card teams have been set, with the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates taking the spots in the first year with two wild card teams playing a one-game playoff round to determine who will advance to the NLDS.