Welcome to The Opener, where every weekday morning you’ll get a fresh, topical column to start your day from one of SI.com’s MLB writers.
As the regular season barrels down towards its eventual conclusion, so much of the postseason picture remains unsettled. We’re a decade into the most recent round of MLB playoff expansion (not counting the one-off 2020 postseason), and though there are certainly justifiable gripes about the format of the playoff system (will a 104-win Dodgers team really have to travel on the road in the divisional round?), adding one more wild-card team to the mix in each league has produced the desired effect of having more teams still in the hunt as the calendar approaches October.