CINCINNATI — Five Major League Baseball teams woke up on Wednesday with the mathematical ability to clinch a playoff berth before their own games were played, and the leagues’ final week is proceeding, in the words of one clubhouse manager, “like a spreadsheet that has become a religion.”

The Guardians, the White Sox, the Cubs, the Phillies and the Padres each entered the day holding a combination of their own results and other teams’ results that could lock a postseason berth on the strength of games they are not even playing, which is the sport’s way of saying the postseason has started and the regular season has started to object. The configuration, in the language of the standings, is that the American League has two division races that may not be decided until the final day, and the National League has a wild-card cluster in which three teams sit at the same record, which in baseball is called a tie, and in clubhouses is called “everyone’s problem.”

"You can clinch with your own win, or with somebody else's loss, or, in the specific, with a combination of both that a television network has drawn for you with arrows."

That line is from a third-base coach who has spent three decades in the postseason math and who described Wednesday’s board as “the most beautiful chart I have ever seen, and I have seen charts.” The chart, in its physical form, is a whiteboard with arrows. The chart, in its spiritual form, is the reason a team in a different state, a different league, and a different timezone can determine, before batting practice, whether its season continues.

The scenario most discussed in the press conferences was the one in which the Guardians, the division leaders by one game, could clinch with a win of their own combined with a loss by a team that has, in the specific, never lost to them in the last two weeks. “The team has to lose a game we are not playing,” the coach said. “That is the new baseball. That has always been the new baseball. We have just now been given a whiteboard to draw it on.”

For the fans, the effect of the configuration is a news cycle in which the result of one game is reported as a result for five, a phenomenon the broadcasters are describing, in the technical term, as “clinching synergy,” and the players are describing, in the clubhouse term, as “the other guy’s loss.”

THE CLINCHING BOARD: HOW IT WORKS

  • The rule: A team is in when the combination of its wins and other teams' losses makes it mathematically impossible to be out. The combination is drawn with arrows.
  • The teams in play Wednesday: Five. In the American League, two division races are one game apart. In the National League, three teams are even at the top of the wild-card list, which is, in the specific, the part of the board with the most arrows.
  • The schedule: The regular season ends in the next several days. The Wild Card Series begins Tuesday, September 29. In between is, on the record, a stretch of games that are, in the specific, the same games, played at a higher volume of sound.
  • The whiteboard: One per clubhouse. The arrows are drawn in permanent marker. The arrows, per the clubhouse, are "a team sport."

At press time, Wednesday’s games were still to come, the board was still being updated, and the five teams were still to find out, one at a time, in the order the schedule has determined, whether their season continues or whether their season becomes, in the specific, a highlight package. The arrows, per the whiteboard, remain up until they do not.