The Yankees and Mariners are kind of getting screwed by their divisions

The Yankees are 87-53, tied for the second-best record in all of baseball. The Yankees are in second place in the American League East, and holding one of the league’s two wild card spots. The Mariners aren’t nearly as lucky: they’re 78-62, which puts them ahead of the NL East and NL West leaders, but unlike the Yankees, they don’t have their own wild card to fall back on.

This is just one of those things that happens with the division and league alignments as they are. The Yankees have the same record as the defending champion Houston Astros, who lead the AL West by 3.5 games, but New York is likely going to have to play in the AL Wild Card Game, Baseball Thunderdome, in order to advance any further in the postseason, and it’s all because they’re 9.5 games behind a Red Sox team that’s a handful of wins away from having the best record of any Red Sox team in a history that stretches back to 1901, a record set all the way back in 1912 with a 105th W.

That’s some, to be blunt, shit luck by the Yankees, who are likely a better team than last year’s iteration that made it one game away from the World Series, but despite this are once again in second place and looking to the win-or-go-home round of one to kick off their postseason.

The Mariners, meanwhile, haven’t been to the postseason since 2001, and looked like they might have a chance at snapping that streak of misfortune this summer. They still do have a chance, as they’re 5.5 games back of the A’s for the second wild card: that’s not close, but it’s not insurmountable, not when they still have three games left against Oakland on the schedule.

These M’s, though, despite a division featuring the defending champs and these upstart A’s, have a better record than anyone in the National League East (the Braves have one more loss and one fewer win) and the NL West (the Rockies have one fewer victory). Seattle also is just half-a-game worse than the Brewers, who have the first wild card, and are tied with the Cardinals, who have the second. This, of course, is under their current divisional setup: if the Mariners were able to play against the Mets and Marlins all the time, too, they might be a mile ahead of the Braves in the standings.

The Yankees and Mariners will kick off a series in Seattle on Friday, one the Mariners need to win a lot more than the Yankees do. New York, which sits 9.5 back of the Red Sox but nine games up on the Mariners, are basically just trying to get healthy in time to win the Wild Card Game and move on to the American League Division Series. The M’s, though, don’t have a postseason spot yet, and are still fighting for one: a series win would be good, but a sweep would be better, as there are just a few weeks left on the schedule for them to catch up.