Yankees playoff schedule starts with ALDS on Saturday, October 5
By clinching the AL East, the Yankees secured their first-round bye and will await a Wild Card winner on the first weekend of October.
The Yankees tied the bow on their successful 2024 regular season by nailing down the American League East division crown on Thursday night. The Orioles had postponed the party by winning on back-to-back days, but with the magic number of this race down to one before the first pitch of the series, Baltimore had no margin for error. Ace Corbin Burnes dueled valiantly with New York counterpart Gerrit Cole, allowing just a solo shot to Giancarlo Stanton. Then, the Orioles’ wayward bullpen got involved.
By the time the dust settled, the division was won with a 10-1 triumph. As such, the Yankees can breathe easier this weekend with the Pirates coming to town. The first-round bye is already secured with the perennial nemesis Astros needing to go to the first round as the lone real consequence of their awful start to 2024. They might have stormed back to surpass Seattle, but they had the worst record of the three American League division champions. They will await the lowest seed on Tuesday in Houston for the start of the best-of-three Wild Card Series.
There’s not much left for the Yankees to play for, aside from ensuring that as many players as possible are rested, healthy, and get their reps in. The question of the No. 1 seed isn’t settled yet, but the Yankees are one game up and also hold a head-to-head tiebreaker on the AL Central-winning Guardians. So the magic number to clinch that is two — any combination of Yankees wins or Guardians losses will do it (they host Houston this weekend).
The most likely outcome has the Yankees securing that No. 1 seed. So in the American League Division Series, they would face the winner of the Wild Card Series between the No. 4 seed and No. 5 seed. Those aforementioned Orioles are already locked in at No. 4, so we could get an AL East grudge match. No. 5 will be determined this weekend with how the Royals and Tigers play against the Braves and White Sox, respectively (unless the three-games-out Twins do something absolutely shocking). Kansas City and Detroit have the same record at the moment and KC holds the tiebreaker, so stay tuned.
