4 AL teams are still fighting for 2 playoff spots with 4 games to go

Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. There are all kinds of stories, rumors, game coverage and Vines of dudes getting hit in the beans every day. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s OK, though, we’re going to do the heavy lifting for you each morning, and find the things you need to see from within the SB Nation baseball network as well as from elsewhere. Please hold your applause until the end, or at least until after you subscribe to the newsletter.

We’re nearly down to the final weekend of the 2015 regular season, as the Astros have already wrapped up their penultimate series and the Yankees, Angels, and Twins are all in the process of doing the same on Thursday. The Blue Jays clinched the AL East on Wednesday, meaning there are just two playoff spots unclaimed in the league: the AL West title, and the second wild card. Technically, the first wild card in the AL is also unclaimed, but that seems unlikely to change hands, as the Yankees are 2.5 games up on the Astros for it as of Thursday morning. Unless they fail to win again in 2015, the Yankees are more than likely taking one of those two spots -- Baseball Prospectus puts their wild card probability at 99.9 percent.

Another loss to the Red Sox on Thursday coupled with wins by the Angels, Astros, and Twins could swing those odds quite a bit, but as the Yankees are three up on Los Angeles and four up on Minnesota it’s easy to see why their chances of not making the postseason are currently 0.1 percent (and why this column’s headline says “4 AL teams” rather than “5”). It’s not even so much that they have cushion, it’s that everyone else is running out of time to reach them. The Twins get some extra emphasis on that note, as their elimination number is three and they sit 1.5 back of the Astros for the lowest hanging fruit left.

The Angels are the team with the greatest chance of upsetting the order as you see it Thursday morning. They finish out the year against the Rangers with a four-game set, and are three games back of them at this time. They are only half-a-game back of the Astros, too, so downing the Rangers this weekend might not net the Angels the division, but it could help secure it for Houston. The Angels can’t afford to lose or even split this series, as the AL West would then be closed off to them, leaving the wild card their final hope for the postseason.