The reeling New York Mets’ struggles have breathed life into the National League wild-card race, and contenders San Francisco and Arizona will try to take advantage when they meet in a three-game series beginning Monday in Phoenix.

The Giants (75-74) sit 1 1/2 games behind the Mets (77-73) for the third wild-card position entering the penultimate week of the regular season. The Diamondbacks (75-75) are another half-game back, just ahead of Cincinnati (74-75).

“We just keep chugging along,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said after the D-backs beat Minnesota 6-4 on Sunday to win the rubber game of a three-game series.

“The mentality is every single day brings a new adventure to us, and we’re just going to ride it the best way we know how. And that’s play hard, have great expectations to do it right, win a baseball game and move on to the next day.”

Arizona right-hander Zac Gallen (11-14, 4.84 ERA) will make his second start in six days against San Francisco.

The Giants, who took two out of three against Arizona at home a week ago, will give rookie right-hander Kai-Wei Teng (2-4, 7.54) his sixth start of 2025.

“To be where we are today is kind of disappointing,” San Francisco manager Bob Melvin said after the Giants beat the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday but lost the final two games of a three-game home series.

“They (D-backs) are a good team. We are going to have to play well to beat them. There are several teams in this thing. We are trying to focus on ourselves. Not look behind and not look too far forward.”

The Giants will be without starting first baseman Dominic Smith, who suffered a strained right hamstring while stretching to take a throw on Friday. He was replaced on the roster by Jerar Encarnacion.

The D-backs could be without infielder/outfielder Blaze Alexander, who was removed from Sunday’s victory after being hit by a pitch in the left elbow in the fourth inning. He is considered day-to-day with an elbow contusion.

Diamondbacks catcher James McCann had a season-high four RBIs on Sunday, including a three-run homer in the fourth that put the D-backs ahead to stay at 4-2 lead.

“This is the best part of the year,” McCann said. “When you start in spring training, you talk about this time of the year. You want to have an opportunity in the middle of September to make a push for the playoffs. That’s what we’re in right now.

“This is what you grind six months of the season for.”

Gallen had a hiccup in the Giants’ 5-3 victory last Tuesday at Oracle Park, when he gave up five runs on five hits in 6 2/3 innings. He walked the first two batters he faced before Willy Adames hit a three-run homer for a 3-0 lead that San Francisco never relinquished.

Patrick Bailey also homered off Gallen, who has given up a career-high 28 homers (second in the NL).

That outing ended Gallen’s seven-game stretch since the July 31 trade deadline in which he was 4-1 with six quality starts. He had not allowed more than three runs in any of those seven outings. He is 7-6 with a 3.94 ERA in 18 starts against the Giants.

Teng, 6-foot-4 and 241 pounds, went a season-long 5 1/3 innings in an 8-2 victory over host Colorado on Sept. 1. He gave up four runs on three hits and five walks in a 4-3 loss at St. Louis his last time out.

–Field Level Media

A pair of American League West rivals that took a step in the wrong direction in their respective playoff races on Sunday get a chance to reverse course when Texas Rangers and host Houston Astros open a critical three-game series on Monday night.

Right-handers Jack Leiter (9-8, 3.81 ERA) of the Rangers and Jason Alexander (4-1, 2.82 with Houston, 4.19 overall) of the Astros will get the ball rolling in the teams’ final head-to-head set. Up 6-4, the Rangers need one win in the set to clinch the season series, which could turn into an important tiebreaker.

The Rangers had two narrow wins and one lopsided defeat when the American League West and AL wild-card contenders met Sept. 5-7 in Arlington. Neither Leiter nor Alexander pitched in that series.

Houston (81-69) begins the week in second place in the West, one game behind the Seattle Mariners (82-68) with 12 to go. The two had been tied atop the division before the Astros were beaten 8-3 in Atlanta on Sunday, hours before the Mariners thumped the Los Angeles Angels at home.

The Rangers will take the field three games behind the Mariners and two back of the Astros. The latter is doubly important in that the Astros currently reside in an AL wild-card position, while the Rangers do not.

The Mariners visit Houston for a three-game showdown Friday through Sunday. The Astros hope to be in better shape physically by then.

They haven’t had Isaac Paredes since July 19 because of a hamstring injury. But the slugging third baseman has been working out in Florida with the hopes of returning before the end of the regular season, perhaps as early as later this week.

Houston manager Joe Espada then had to pull Jose Altuve from Saturday’s game against the Braves with a foot injury. Astros general manager Dana Brown disclosed on the team’s pregame show Sunday that the setback is expected to be a minor one.

“We’re not concerned; our medical staff is not concerned,” Brown announced, believing Altuve would miss “a day or two, two days tops.”

The team sparkplug did not play Sunday in Atlanta.

The Rangers (79-71), meanwhile, had a chance to close the gap on the Astros on Sunday but fell 5-2 in 10 innings on the road against the New York Mets. Texas had won the first two games of the series to run its winning streak to six.

If Texas has an advantage in the series, it’s that it appears the Rangers’ latest injury concern is no longer valid. Adolis Garcia returned from a 10-game absence due to a strained right quad to bat cleanup in New York on Sunday.

He went 0-for-4, but the good news outweighed the bad.

“He was really swinging the bat well when he got hurt,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy assured reporters Sunday. “He is a guy that hits in the heart of our order. It’s great to have him.”

Leiter is 1-0 with a 4.38 ERA in 12 1/3 innings over two career starts against the Astros, while Alexander has never faced the Rangers.

–Field Level Media

The Cincinnati Reds lost ground in the National League playoff chase while suffering an untimely three-game weekend sweep from the Athletics in West Sacramento, Calif.

The Reds (74-75) will try to regain traction Monday night when they visit the St. Louis Cardinals (73-77) in the opener of a three-game series.

Cincinnati is 2 1/2 games behind the New York Mets in the race for the final NL wild-card spot. The Cardinals remained four games back of the Mets, who defeated the Texas Rangers 5-2 on Sunday.

The Reds will open the series with pitcher Zack Littell (9-8, 3.78 ERA), who is coming off a strong performance Tuesday at San Diego. The right-hander held the Padres to two runs on two hits and one walk with four strikeouts in six innings of a 4-2 victory,

Littell retired 11 consecutive batters during one stretch while displaying his formula for success.

“I thought he worked with his fastball, and then off of that comes the split,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “And then the cutter-ish, slider, whatever you want to call it. But I thought he just pitched.”

The Reds are just 3-4 in games Littell started since arriving from the Tampa Bay Rays in a late-season trade, but three of those losses came in extra innings.

One of those defeats came on Aug. 29 at home against the Cardinals. Littell worked seven innings while allowing four runs (three earned) on six hits.

He struck out four batters in that game and walked none. Pedro Pages hit a two-run homer against him and Ivan Herrera hit a solo shot.

Littell is 0-2 with a 6.04 ERA in 22 1/3 innings against the Cardinals in 10 career appearances, including two starts.

The Cardinals (73-77) snapped a five-game losing streak by edging the Brewers 3-2 on Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee.

They will open this series with left-hander Matthew Liberatore (7-12, 4.35), who will try to rebound from one of his toughest outings of the season.

He allowed five runs on six hits, including two homers, in four innings during a 5-3 loss at Seattle on Tuesday.

“Three walks and two mistake pitches,” Liberatore said. “That’s really what it boils down to.”

Liberatore is 0-1 with a 5.63 ERA in two starts against the Reds this season. He allowed five runs on 10 hits, including three homers, and three walks in eight innings.

But he is 1-1 with a 3.45 ERA in 15 2/3 innings over nine career appearances against the Reds, including seven in relief.

The Cardinals regained second baseman Brendan Donovan (groin strain) from the injured list during the series in Milwaukee, but they lost shortstop Masyn Winn to a season-ending torn meniscus in his right knee.

“I was hoping after having three days off it would feel a lot better,” Winn told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It was really tough to swing, really tough to take ground balls. The training staff noticed it. I was trying to hide it a little bit.”

Donovan and first baseman Willson Contreras should return to the lineup Monday after taking off Sunday. Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol was Contreras “was pretty beat up” after getting hit twice by pitches Saturday.

St. Louis expects to get third baseman Nolan Arenado back from the injured list for this series. He has been on a rehab assignment with Double-A Springfield after recovering from shoulder soreness.

–Field Level Media

The New York Yankees hold the No. 1 spot in the American League wild-card standings, but they would prefer to sit atop their division and let other teams battle it out for the wild card.

New York (83-66) will get a chance to climb closer to first place in the AL East when they open a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins (65-84) on Monday night in Minneapolis.

The Yankees, who have won nine of the last 10 meetings against the Twins, enter the series four games behind the Toronto Blue Jays (87-62) for first place.

New York holds a 1 1/2-game edge over the Boston Red Sox and a 2 1/2-game lead over the Houston Astros, who also occupy wild-card spots. The Texas Rangers and Cleveland Guardians remain in the hunt as they sit two games back and 2 1/2 games back, respectively, of the final wild-card spot.

The Yankees arrive in Minnesota with a bad taste in their mouth after losing 6-4 to the Red Sox on Sunday night. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone did not want to offer a big-picture view of his team’s recent matchups against playoff contenders.

“We’ll get into Minnesota here late and we’ve got another playoff game (Monday),” Boone said. “That’s how I look at it.”

Yankees slugger Aaron Judge will look to stay hot. He has five home runs in his past six games, including his 48th homer of the season Sunday.

“He looks really good,” Boone said. “More good ABs (on Sunday). He smokes a ball off the wall there, the last one. That’s as clean as you can hit a ball the other way. …

“He’s just getting on time, getting into that good position where he’s making his move how he wants to (at the plate). I feel like that’s where he’s kind of been searching for these last few weeks, and it looks really good to me.”

Twins right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson (6-4, 4.58 ERA) will try to stifle Judge and his teammates. Woods Richardson is going for back-to-back wins after holding the Los Angeles Angels to three runs in five innings on Sept. 8.

This will be Woods Richardson’s first career start against the Yankees.

New York will counter with left-hander Carlos Rodon (16-8, 3.11), who has registered three straight quality starts. Rodon took the loss in his last outing despite limiting the Detroit Tigers to two runs on five hits in six innings.

In 15 games (14 starts) against the Twins, Rodon is 9-3 with a 4.00 ERA in 83 1/3 innings.

The Twins are coming off a series loss against the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks, who took two of three over the weekend.

“I feel like we were in every game and competed,” Twins outfielder Matt Wallner said. “(We’re) just taking that and finishing strong and just building for next year — everyone as a group, individually. It can never hurt.”

–Field Level Medi

The Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays will open a four-game series on Monday and will do it showcasing a pair of arms that could play a big role in their futures.

Having won four straight games, the American League East-leading Blue Jays (87-62) do not have the luxury of putting it on cruise control and riding out their final 13 regular-season games, despite owning the junior circuit’s best mark and being red-hot the second half of 2025.

In an intriguing development, Toronto will send out its top prospect, pitcher Trey Yesavage, in his debut.

Manager John Schneider said the move is closer to one of necessity rather than just a late-season dalliance to see what the Canadian club might have for next year.

“This isn’t an open tryout,” said Schneider. “This is a very, very deliberate decision that we think he can help us. I don’t want to experiment too much, and I don’t want to ruffle any feathers more than we already have.”

To say the 2024 first-round pick (No. 20 overall) has had a meteoric rise this season is a gigantic understatement.

In stops at Class-A Dunedin, High-A Vancouver, Double-A New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo, the former East Carolina right-hander went 5-1 with a 3.12 ERA in 25 outings, 22 of them starts.

Despite firing only 98 innings overall, the 22-year-old Yesavage whiffed 160 and allowed just 54 hits and 41 walks, opening eyes within the organization and fast-tracking him through the farm system.

The 6-foot-4, 225-pound Pennsylvania product said he isn’t worried about his first big league start.

“There’s not much pressure at all. I’m still playing a children’s game for a living,” Yesavage said.

While the Blue Jays are scorching, the Rays (73-76) have wasted plenty of opportunities to try to return to serious wild-card consideration.

In the Windy City, they dropped two of three to both the AL-worst White Sox and playoff-slotted Cubs, almost decimating any playoff hopes and inching closer to missing the postseason for the second consecutive campaign.

Entering Monday, the Rays sit 7 1/2 games behind the Houston Astros, who descended into the third wild-card spot after being passed by the sizzling Seattle Mariners, who have won nine straight to assume the lead in the AL West.

Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash’s club has seen his club fizzle after winning a season-high seven straight and getting within a couple of games of the Mariners.

The Rays have dropped seven of their past nine but are 5-1 against Toronto. However, they haven’t faced this version of the Blue Jays: The clubs last squared off in a May 25 affair.

No announcement was made for Monday’s Rays starter, and it won’t be a bullpen game. Speculation is that it could be right-hander Joe Boyle (1-3, 5.40), who was scratched from his start at Triple-A Durham on Sunday.

Ryan Pepiot, who was expected to be done for the season due to fatigue and a career high in innings (163), will start Tuesday.

“I think the extra rest and the extra days (helped), spending some time in the training room, getting everything back right,” the righty said after a bullpen session. “Everything came out good, stuff was good, so I’m looking forward to getting back out there.”

–Field Level Media

Nine years ago, Jameson Taillon was a pitching prospect with Pittsburgh, part of a core that the Pirates hoped would turn around the long-suffering franchise.

Fast forward to Monday and Taillon will take the mound, looking to help another one of baseball’s most famously tortured franchises get back to the playoffs — and the right-hander will do so against the team that first turned to him nearly a decade ago.

Taillon, 33, will be on the mound for Chicago on Monday when the Cubs visit Pittsburgh for the first of a three-game series — the opening series of the Cubs’ final road trip of the season.

The Cubs (85-64) will take the field 5 1/2 games behind the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers, but also sitting in the first wild-card spot in the NL, 10 games ahead of the San Francisco Giants — the first team out of a wild-card berth. Chicago is looking to get back to the postseason for the first time since 2020, when the Cubs were swept by the Miami Marlins in the wild-card round in the COVID-shortened season.

That ended a run for the Cubs of five postseasons over a six-season span — a run that included winning the World Series in 2016 to break a 108-year title drought.

Taillon (9-6, 4.15 ERA), a nine-year veteran who has played for the Pirates, Yankees and Cubs in his career, will be making his second start since being activated from the injured list after dealing with a groin strain. In his first game back on Wednesday, Taillon gave up two runs on six hits and two walks with two strikeouts over 4 1/3 innings. He did not get a decision as the Cubs won 3-2 in Atlanta.

“(Taillon) gave what we needed,” Cuba manager Craig Counsell said after the game. “You’re facing (Braves left-hander) Chris Sale and you know it’s not going to be easy to score. He wasn’t making it look like it was going to be very easy to score, that’s for sure. We did a nice job and (Taillon) hung in there and gave us a good effort.”

Taillon is 3-2 with a 4.25 ERA in 36 innings over six career starts against the Pirates, who took him No. 2 overall out of The Woodlands High School in Texas in 2010.

Opposing him will be rookie righty Braxton Ashcraft (4-2, 2.47). Postseason dreams have long been extinguished for the Pirates (65-85), who own the worst record of any team not yet officially eliminated from the playoffs. But that won’t render the rest of this season meaningless.

Much like Taillon nine years ago, Ashcraft represents what the Pirates hope will be the foundation of that long-awaited emergence. With reigning NL Rookie of the Year and current Cy Young Award favorite Paul Skenes set to take the mound Tuesday, Ashcraft will face the Cubs for the third time in his debut season.

In his first game at Wrigley Field on June 14, Ashcraft pitched the final two innings of a 2-1 Pirates loss, retiring all six batters he faced, including striking out the final two.

Then in Chicago on Aug. 15, Ashcraft got the start and was again stellar, giving up one run on three hits over five innings. He struck out four and did not walk a batter en route to a no-decision in a 3-2 Pirates win.

In his most recent outing, Ashcraft pitched three innings of relief in a game the Pirates lost 3-2 in 11 innings in Baltimore on Tuesday. He gave up one run on two hits with two walks and four strikeouts.

After the game, Ashcraft was asked what he hopes his recent performances have shown the Pirates.

“(That) I want the ball,” said Ashcraft, a second-round pick in the 2018 draft out of Robinson (Texas) High School. “I think at the end of the day, the willingness to fill roles boils down to wanting to take the ball and be on the bump. That’s how I grew up and that’s how I know this game. Go compete when you have the opportunity to. I’m looking to do more of that this year.”

–Field Level Media

After a lost weekend for both teams, the Chicago White Sox and visiting Baltimore Orioles look to regroup when they begin a three-game series on Monday.

Chicago (57-93) lost three straight to the host Cleveland Guardians over the weekend, while Baltimore (69-80) was swept in three games by the host Toronto Blue Jays.

One bright spot for the Orioles was the play of first baseman Coby Mayo, who hit his second home run in as many games during an 11-2 loss to the Blue Jays on Sunday.

The 23-year-old Mayo enters Monday’s play batting .193 with nine homers and 24 RBIs. Orioles interim manager Tony Mansolino is hoping the young slugger can build on his success from the weekend.

“It’s a good couple days right there,” Mansolino said. “I just think with young players, there’s going to be some ups and some downs, and Coby’s gone through both sides of it a little bit. The last couple days, he’s trending up a little bit … a couple nice things right there, promising, exciting.”

The White Sox have been similarly encouraged by the play of infielders Chase Meidroth and Lenyn Sosa.

Meidroth extended his hitting streak to 10 games and hit his fifth homer of the season in a 3-2 loss to Cleveland on Sunday. Meidroth is batting .471 (16-for-34) during his streak.

Chicago manager Will Venable has also been impressed by Sosa, who has set career highs in every offensive category and leads the team in RBI (68) and home runs (20).

“He’s just consistently been a guy that has a dangerous bat,” Venable said. “Now he’s really calculated, and when he wants to let it go early in the count, he’s seeing some good pitches, getting his timing right and having some good results.”

The pitching matchup for the series opener features a pair of right-handers as Baltimore’s Kyle Bradish (0-1, 2.65 ERA) faces Chicago’s Sean Burke (4-10, 4.35).

Bradish, 29, has completed six innings in two of his three starts since returning from Tommy John surgery. He allowed four hits and one run over seven innings with two walks and six strikeouts in a no-decision against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates last Tuesday.

“Getting through seven is always good for everybody — team, bullpen, myself,” Bradish said. “But yeah, just knowing I can be efficient like I was and get through seven and give the team a quality start, that’s always the goal.”

Bradish is set to make his second career start against the White Sox after tossing seven no-hit innings with 11 strikeouts in a 4-1 victory on May 26, 2024.

Burke, 25, was recalled after making three starts for Triple-A Charlotte and allowed three runs across 4 1/3 innings in a no-decision at home against the Tampa Bay Rays last Wednesday.

“I really liked where all my stuff was at,” Burke said. “Having the two or three weeks to kind of focus on getting back and (the) feel with everything was nice. Now that I’m in a good spot with that, it’s about continuing to get ahead of guys and do everything I can to get guys out here.”

Burke is making his first career start against Baltimore. He followed the opener and allowed two runs over six innings in a 2-1 loss to the host Orioles on May 30.

Baltimore leads the season series, 3-0, after sweeping the White Sox at Camden Yards from May 30-June 1.

–Field Level Media