Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff

MLB

September Monday, Part I: AL wild card’s down to business

You might have noticed that we have a Web redesign, and that has meant the formal demise of my blog, Ken Davidoff’s Baseball Insider, at age 6. We made it through two newspapers, five Alex Rodriguez significant others and eight Mets closers.

But we’re still going to do our thing here, early in the day from Monday through Friday. You’ll just find them on my page, integrated with my other columns and stories. So sort of like Murray Chass, I’ll be writing a blog while angrily insisting that it isn’t a blog.

So that’s that, and let’s get down to business.

–Our Pop Quiz question comes from Gary Mintz of South Huntington: In the 2011 film “The Change-Up,” Sabrina (Olivia Wilde) says she has dressed up as a specific Braves Hall of Famer multiple times for Halloween. Name the Hall of Famer.

–How about some updated playoff seeds?

AL: Boston (1) vs. winner of Texas (WC1) and Tampa Bay (WC2), Oakland (2) vs. Detroit (3)

NL: Atlanta (1) vs. winner of Pittsburgh (WC1) and Cincinnati (WC2), Dodgers (2) vs. St. Louis (3)

–What is September Monday? It’s something we do here to kick off each of the final weeks of the regular season. This is my favorite time of year when it comes to on-field matters, because we focus so much on the games themselves. There are virtually no trade discussions, because postseason rosters already have been finalized. We can talk about the Hot Stove stuff coming this winter, but there’ll be time for that, and more important, there’s additional information to collect on that front.

Sure, the postseason is great. But there are more races, more games and more plotlines this month. So let’s look at what this week has in store for us:

Race of the Week: The American League wild card, naturally. The Yankees somehow still have a chance after ending a brutal, three-game losing streak with an exciting win on Sunday. It isn’t much of a chance — 10.1 percent, as per the simulations of CoolStandings.com — but it’s a chance.

In all, nine of the 15 AL teams are within four games (in the loss column) of a postseason spot. It makes for very exciting action.

Even better, the four teams on the outside of the race pair off and go head-to-head starting Monday night with Yankees at Orioles and Royals at Indians. Over the weekend, the Indians have it easiest with a visit to the White Sox while the Yankees visit Boston, the Royals go to Detroit and the Orioles head to Toronto, which is playing better.

Series of the Week: A’s at Rangers, starting Friday and going through Sunday. It’s a repeat of last September, with these two clubs going at it for the AL West title.

Paul Vitti of the Week: As Robert De Niro’s character says in “Analyze This”, “Yeah, I got stress.” That would be the Pirates, whose remarkable season has taken a turn for the worse with four straight losses since they picked up their historic 81st victory that ended a streak of 20 consecutive losing seasons. The Pirates have fallen out of the National League Central penthouse and lead the Reds by percentage points (and one game in the loss column) in the wild-card race.

It would represent progress if the Pirates finished with the second wild card and lost in the one-and-done game in Cincinnati. But it wouldn’t feel very good to Pittsburgh fans after the team’s excellent start. Which leads us to…

Interleague Series of the Week: Pirates at Rangers, starting Monday night. This is the first time interleague action is having a serious impact in the September drama. Two struggling playoff teams go at it in Arlington, Texas.

Player of the Week: Robinson Cano, Yankees. Remember when he was losing free-agent money because he wasn’t elevating the Yankees? Now that he actually has some help in the lineup, he’s looking pretty darn valuable. He has a solid .861 OPS in September, with eight RBI in eight games, and that’s a dropoff from his 1.012 OPS in August.

Pitcher of the Week: Max Scherzer, Detroit. Twenty wins still stands as a romantic milestone, though we know by now that pitchers’ wins represent a pretty lousy metric. Tonight, Scherzer will take his third shot at becoming the first 20-game winner of 2013. Scherzer is in the middle of a good AL Cy Young Award race with his teammate Anibal Sanchez, the White Sox’s Chris Sale and Seattle’s Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma.

Dr. Andrews Visit of the Week: While Jets writer Brian Costello might disagree, let’s go with Matt Harvey. Though I haven’t seen Harvey’s elbow or tests first-hand, the widespread expectation is he’ll opt for Tommy John surgery. Sandy Alderson has been pretty explicit about that in interviews.

–The Pop Quiz answer is Phil Niekro. If you have a tidbit that correlates baseball to popular culture, please send it to me at kdavidoff@nypost.com.

–Have a great day.