It would be crazy, all right. I would guess that MLB would do its utmost to make up at least one and preferably two of those games before the season actually ended…“You guys both have an off day on September 24th? Great! Yankees, on September 23rd you fly to Oakland after your game in Baltimore, and after that you fly right home and take on Detroit in the Bronx…”
But yeah, that’s pretty much what they’d have to do.
As for the team that’s out of it, back in '73 the Padres finsihed the season on Saturday (!) with 102 losses, but had to fly to Pittsburgh for a makeup game against the Pirates on Monday. That’s not QUITE your scenario, but not too far removed. I’m sure it kind of sucked, but if you want the appearance of fairness about who makes the playoffs, it kind of has to happen that way!
I just recalled that this is doubly interesting because 1908 is the year of the Merkle boner and the Cubs and Giants were required to play that make-up game after the season was over which let the Cubs win the pennant by 1 game. The leagues must have had different rules at the time.
Well the standings are again as they were when this thread began. And again espn.com has the Sox in 1st place on the main baseball page, but in 2nd place on the team pages. While I agree that MLB would try to complete the schedule in a potential tie-breaking situation, there must be some rule on which version of the standings takes precedence. After all, it could simply be impossible to complete the schedule for a variety of reasons, most of them tragic in nature.
As of this morning, New York is in first place, 1/2 game behind Boston, having played 5 fewer games, not all of which are certain to be made up given that there are no triple-headers.
I know four of the make-up games: the 2 games with the Nationals on June 18 and doubleheaders with Baltimore on July 9th and August 25th. I think that might be it? I can’t remember any other rainouts.