by Logan Bowe

As the World Series looms near, we here at The Sider Press want to take a look back at the MLB season as a whole and recap the playoffs before the World Series gets underway. 

In the AL East, the Blue Jays and Yankees led their league with 94 wins, and the Blue Jays won the tie breaker to win the division. The Red Sox followed close behind with 89 wins and a spot as the 5th seeded team. Meanwhile, the Rays remained mediocre with 77 wins and the Orioles shocked everyone with a mere 75 wins, as they went into the season considered strong contenders for the division.

Meanwhile, in the AL Central division, the race between the Tigers and Guardians went down to the last weekend of the season. The Guardians ultimately won the division by one game, but the Tigers still made the playoffs as a wild card . The Royals were able to scrape together 82 wins to stay above .500 and finish 3rd. While the Twins were not too competitive with 70 wins and the White Sox finished last with an unsurprising 60 wins.

The AL West division was perhaps the most shocking, as the 90 win and 2nd seeded Mariners were the only AL West team to make the playoffs. The Astros and Rangers finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. Not quite as shocking were the 76 win Athletics and the 72 win Angels who fell far short of the postseason. 

In the NL East, the Phillies won the division with 96 wins, leaving a big gap between them and the 83 win and playoff-less Mets. A once dominant division with constant contention, the East boasts only a single team in the playoffs this year. The Marlins ended with a respectable and promising 79 wins. The Braves, on the other hand, had a devastating 76 win season. Their worst showing since 2017. Comfortably, at the bottom of the division, sat the Nationals with just 66 wins.

In the NL Central, The Brewers led all of the Majors with 97 Wins, meaning for the second year in a row not a single team reached the 100 win mark. Not too far behind were the 92 win Cubs, followed by the 83 win Reds, who both made the playoffs as wild cards. The Cardinals and Pirates had 78 and 71 wins respectively. 

Finally, in the NL West, the Dodgers took care of business with a 93 win season. The Padres gave it their all, but they still fell short finishing three games behind the Dodgers. As for the Giants and Diamondbacks, they finished third and fourth, with 81 and 80 wins respectively. The Rockies, on the other hand, finished with the worst record in baseball, finishing with a staggering 43 wins and 119 Losses. 

As for the playoffs, the AL Wild Card series was full of timeless rivalries: The Tigers v. Guardians and the Red Sox v. Yankees. The Yankees and Tigers took their respective series in three games. The NL Wild Card featured the strange duos of the Reds v. Dodgers and the Padres v. Cubs. The Cubs, similar to the Tigers and Yankees, won in three games while the Dodgers swept their series 2-0. 

The Division Series was home to many heartbreaking losses, such as the 3-1 series loss by the Phillies, falling to the Dodgers. Even worse was the winner takes all game 5 between the Tigers and Mariners which ended in heartbreaking fashion during the 15th inning, as the Mariners just barely slid their way through to a victory. The Cubs took the Brewers to 5 games, only to end up losing 3-1 to end their season. Finally, the Yankees fell to the Blue Jays 3-1 as Vladimir Guerrero Jr. showed the Yankees who ran the AL East. 

In the two Championship series, the Blue Jays took on the Mariners for the AL title with a 4-3 series victory over Seattle, clinching their first AL pennant since 1993. Meanwhile, the Dodgers swept the Brewers for the NL Pennant – their second consecutive year with that distinction. With that, the 2025 World Series is set with the Toronto Blue Jays set to face the Los Angeles Dodgers for the title of World Champion. Who do you think is going to win?