NEW YORK (AP) -- The baseball season is going extra innings.
While the American League playoff picture cleared up Sunday, the National League remained muddled heading into what was supposed to be an off day before the postseason.
AL West champion Houston hosts Detroit and Baltimore is at home against Kansas City in best-of-three Wild Card Series starting Tuesday afternoon. The Astros-Tigers winner faces AL Central champion Cleveland in a best-of-five Division Series beginning Saturday, and the Orioles-Royals winner plays the AL East champion New York Yankees.
The NL is still uncertain because of two rainouts last week caused by Hurricane Helene with the Mets, Arizona and Atlanta vying for the final two wild-card spots in the 12-team playoffs. The Mets traveled back to Atlanta on Sunday for the makeup doubleheader Monday.
Arizona finished 89-73 and the Mets and Braves are both 88-72. If either team sweeps the doubleheader, the Diamondbacks reach the playoffs. But if the twinbill is split, the Mets and Braves advance and Arizona is out because the Diamondbacks lost their season series to both New York and Atlanta.
Arizona can only be the No. 6 seed if it reaches the postseason and would play a division series at NL Central champion Milwaukee.
If the Braves win either game of the doubleheader, they would play a division series at San Diego.
If the Mets sweep the doubleheader, they become the No. 5 seed and play at San Diego beginning Tuesday. If they split and are the No. 6 seed, they go right back to Milwaukee to face the Brewers.
Mets right-hander Tylor Megill (4-5) and Atlanta rookie Spencer Schwellenbach (8-7), a former Husker, were scheduled to start the doubleheader opener.
Right-hander Luis Severino (117) and Braves ace Chris Sale (18-3) are lined up for the second game, but a team winning the opener was likely to save that starting pitcher for Game 1 of playoff opener Tuesday.
No triple crown
NEW YORK -- Luis Arraez held off Shohei Ohtani's bid to win the National League Triple Crown and became the first player since the 1800s to earn batting titles with three teams.
Kansas City Royals star Bobby Witt won his first American League batting championship, finishing with a major league-best .332 average.
Arraez went 1 for 3 Sunday and posted a .314 average for San Diego, the lowest for an NL batting champion since Tony Gwynn's record-low .313 in 1988. After striking out and flying out in his first two at-bats, Arraez doubled in the sixth inning to reach 200 hits for the second straight season. He was pulled for a defensive replacement in the bottom half.
Arraez won the 2022 AL title at .316 for Minnesota and the 2023 NL title at .354 for Miami, which traded him to the Padres in May. He became the first NL player with 200 hits in consecutive seasons since Juan Pierre in 2003 and 2004.
Dan Brouthers won five batting titles with four teams from 1882 through 1892.
Ohtani went 1 for 4 with an eighth-inning single and finished second in the National League at .310. In his first season with the Dodgers, he led the NL with 54 homers and 130 RBIs. He also got his 59th stolen base Sunday to cap a campaign in which he became the first major leaguer with 50 homers and 50 steals in one season. The two-way star did not pitch this year following elbow surgery in September 2023.
Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals was the last NL Triple Crown winner in 1937. The most recent player to achieve the feat in either league was Detroit slugger Miguel Cabrera in 2012, which ended a 45-year drought.
Atlanta's Marcell Ozuna sits third in the NL in batting at .304 and would have to go 9 for 9 in a makeup doubleheader Monday against the New York Mets to overtake Arraez.
Witt, who took his first day off all season Saturday, went 1 for 4 in the Royals' finale to finish at .332. Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero was second at .323 and the New York Yankees' Aaron Judge third at .322.
Judge had 58 homers to lead the major leagues for the second time after hitting an AL-record 62 in 2022. His 144 RBIs were the most in the majors since Philadelphia's Ryan Howard had 146 in 2008.