PHOENIX - The Arizona Diamondbacks are still alive in the National League wild-card race. The margin for error is nearly gone.
Arizona finished its final home stand of 2026 with an 8-4 comeback win over the New York Yankees on Sunday, the Associated Press and team coverage noted, after Nolan Arenado's third grand slam of the season capped a night that kept the club mathematically in the hunt. The larger board is less forgiving.
CBS Sports' final-week roundup placed the Diamondbacks at 82-74, four games behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the third wild-card spot and five behind the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres, who are tied atop the wild-card standings.
Six games remain. None of them are at Chase Field.
Rockies first, Padres last
Arizona opens the week with three games at Colorado beginning Tuesday, then closes the regular season with three at Petco Park against the Padres from Sept. 25 to 27. Burn City Sports framed the same schedule as the club's entire October case: win as many of the six as possible and hope the teams ahead stumble.
That second half is not theoretical. Good Morning Ball's Aaron Hughes, cited by Burn City Sports, mapped the blunt math against Philadelphia: if Arizona goes 4-2, the Phillies would need to go 0-6; a 5-1 Diamondbacks finish still requires Philadelphia at 1-5 or worse; a 6-0 Arizona week still needs the Phillies no better than 2-4.
San Diego's magic number to clinch a berth, per that same accounting, is two - any combination of two Padres wins or Arizona losses can lock the Padres in and push Arizona further toward the brink.
CBS Sports put Arizona's most straightforward path this way: get within three games of San Diego during the Rockies series, then sweep the Padres in the finale. The season series between Arizona and San Diego is tied 5-5, so whoever wins that last set also owns the tiebreaker if the clubs finish even.
What the standings still allow
The Cubs and Padres each hold five-game leads over Arizona in the wild-card table, CBS Sports reported, and Chicago already owns the season-series edge on the Diamondbacks. Philadelphia's magic number to clinch a postseason spot is three and can be reached as early as Wednesday. Those numbers explain why Arizona's wins matter and why they are no longer enough on their own.
