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The final series of the season, and there’s not very much left to be decided across the landscape of baseball. The Red Sox have almost clinched the AL East, with their magic number down to one. And the Rockies have almost clinched the second wild-card spot in the National League, their magic number being two. Quite a contrast to some previous final weekends we’ve seen: it’s likely that the final day of the season will be entirely devoid of meaningful baseball games on the team level. These final series will be much more about the individual marks: how many more home-runs can Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and J.D. Martinez hit?
For Zack Greinke, this will be a light tune-up, in advance of the wild-card game next Wednesday. I certainly don’t expect him to go too deep into the game: if I’d to guess, probably not much beyond seventy pitches. It may well end up being a spring training sort of weekend in Kansas City, with the starters being rotated out well before the end of the contest. I’m just hoping everyone gets through the series intact: it would suck to lose anyone over these three final and empty games. I appreciate the need to keep the players’ fresh and on the field, but I’ll be watching the series with my fingers crossed, until the final out on Sunday afternoon!