Top of the Order: What's at stake in the final weekend of the regular season

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I'll start your baseball day with some news, notes and thoughts about the game we love.

Games 163 will never happen as long as this current playoff format exists. Tiebreakers are decided by the head-to-head and then intra-league records, no matter how much Michael Baumann wants that. Team Entropy is dead. And so at the end of the weekend we will know who will be in the playoffs and with what seeding – at least in the American League. We'll get to the scheduling debacle in the National League in a moment.

Here's what remains to be decided before the final weekend of the regular season:

NL home advantage

We know the Dodgers and Phillies will have first-round byes and home-field advantage for the NLDS; What we don't know yet is who will have home field advantage when the two teams meet in the NLCS. Los Angeles must finish with the best record in the Netherlands to maintain home-field advantage, as Philadelphia has won five of its six games against the Dodgers this season.

NL Wild Cards 2 and 3

Step one is simple: Wild Card 1 belongs to the Padres and they host the top finisher of the three teams fighting for the final two spots: the Braves, Mets and Diamondbacks.

This is where things get complicated. Because of the threat of landfall from Hurricane Helene, the Mets and Braves have postponed their crucial games on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta and instead scheduled a doubleheader on Monday if necessary. The only way the series would become redundant would be if the Diamondbacks were eliminated from the playoff race entirely, leaving the final two wild card spots to the Mets and Braves.

The Diamondbacks play the Padres in their final three games, with the Braves set to play the Royals in Atlanta (if Kansas City makes it to town) and the Mets traveling to Milwaukee to face the Brewers.

This is the only way there can be at least one game in the doubleheader is not is played if the following is true:

1. The Mets win at least two games against the Brewers.
2. The Braves win at least two games against the Royals.
3. The Diamondbacks lose at least two games to the Padres.

At that point, the commissioner's office may decide to cancel the doubleheader game and instead seed the playoffs based on the 160 games the teams have played. It is also possible that only one game of the doubleheader is required; This would be the case if the Diamondbacks were to win over the weekend and the winner of Monday's first game was two games ahead in the standings.

The Braves are currently 6-5 in the season series over the Mets. So if they don't end up playing in the doubleheader, Atlanta would get the higher seed and travel to San Diego in the first round of the playoffs. The Mets, meanwhile, would remain in Milwaukee and play the Brewers again, this time in the best-of-three wild card round.

AL home advantage

One of two teams will secure home field advantage in the AL playoffs: the Yankees or the Guardians. New York is in the tiebreaker over Cleveland.

AL wildcard

The first AL Wild Card spot will almost certainly go to the Orioles, who enter Friday's game with a three-game lead over the Tigers and Royals. Unless the Orioles are defeated by the Twins and the Tigers defeat the White Sox, they will host the Wild Card Series against the No. 1 seed. 5 seeds.

And fortunately for anyone still having their heads turned by the NL Wild Card bracket, the other two AL Wild Card races are more understandable and far less complicated.

The Tigers determine their own fate here; They lost the season series to both the Royals and Twins, so they need to secure a spot in the playoffs and get ahead of at least one of the two teams. Luckily for them, they finish against the weak (albeit suddenly rising!) White Sox. There's no guarantee of wins – just ask the Angels how they're feeling right now – but Detroit certainly has the edge here, to say the least.

Minnesota is in the tiebreaker ahead of the other two AL Central clubs fighting for the final two Wild Card spots, but this team is hanging on by a thread. The Twins, now three games behind, must beat the Orioles And Either the Tigers will be defeated by the White Sox or The Royals are defeated by the Braves and make the playoffs.

When it comes to the royals, things get a little hairy. As mentioned in the NL section, the Royals are scheduled to travel to Atlanta to take on the Braves, but it's unclear if they can even get there on Friday, considering Helene is currently expected to impact the Atlanta metro area through Friday evening . If MLB doesn't move to a neutral lineup — which seems unlikely since the league hasn't moved for the Mets-Braves games and it's unclear whether the Braves could even leave Atlanta — a doubleheader could happen Saturday. The Braves and Royals could both be playing for their seasons in the most unideal of circumstances, and the Braves may have to start all over again on Monday!

Buckle up everyone.