The Yanks’ Aaron Judge is hitting .286 against Red Sox pitching.

Tiger Ace Tarik Skubal has been one of the best pitchers in the majors over the last few years.

The 2025 Major League Baseball regular season concluded on Sunday, Sept. 28, with a theme of redemption. Two teams in particular, the Cleveland Guardians and the New York Mets, found themselves at opposite ends of that spectrum.

On Sunday, all 15 contests, marking the end of the 162nd game of the regular season, began roughly at the same time to eliminate any chance of teams’ scoreboard watching. Now it’s playoff time.

For 2025, the Mets have the largest MLB player payroll, valued by the League at $323 million. For the 2024 season, they signed free agent outfielder Juan Soto away from their crosstown rival, the Yankees. This year, the Mets paid him an MLB and professional sports one-year record salary of $61.88 million.

The Mets thought they were all set for 2025. They were in the National League playoff picture for the entire season. In September, they ran out of gas. They lost 15 games, including an eight-game losing streak, with only 10 wins.

As Sunday dawned, the Mets were in a tie with the Tito Francona-managed Cincinnati Reds at 83-78. Since the Reds owned the tiebreaker, the Mets needed a win and a Reds loss to gain the third and final wild card spot. Then, it would be on to the Playoffs.

Not so fast. The 83-78 Mets were playing the 78-83 Florida Marlins. First, Cincinnati lost 4-2 to the MLB-best 97-65 Milwaukee Brewers. The Mets were on the doorstep. But the Marlins shut them out 4-0. Goodbye, Playoffs 2025, New York Mets.

There is a saying that the love of money is the root of all evil — no redemption for the Mets. Paying Soto so much, tempting him away from their New York baseball brothers, may have been both his and the Mets’ undoing.

At the other end of the spectrum are the American League Cleveland Guardians. They have a $101 million player payroll, ranking 25th out of 30 in MLB. Their best and highest-paid player for 2025 is All-Star third baseman Jose Ramirez at $20.14 million. Jose agreed to a “hometown discount” in 2024, allowing him to remain a Guardian for his entire career.

At the beginning of July, the Guardians were 15 and a half games behind the first-place Detroit Tigers in the Central Division.

At the time, Cleveland was reeling from the ultimate baseball sin: gambling.

The Guardians’ best-in-the-game closer Emmanuel Clase, along with Cleveland fellow pitcher Luis Ortiz, had been suspended. On July 28, they were both placed on nondisciplinary paid leave as part of an investigation into sports betting by the League.

For July and August, the Guardians put aside the loss of their most important pitcher, put their shoulders to the wheel, believed in each other, and said, “Somehow, someway.” By the beginning of September they were 10 games behind the Tigers; however, for the month, they went 20-7. That included a 10-game winning streak.

On Sunday, the 87-74 Guardians defeated the 81-80 Texas Rangers with a homer that hit the right field foul pole for a 9-8 walk-off win. They had begun the day in a firstplace tie and owning the tiebreaker over Detroit, who had already lost to the Red Sox. Therefore, the game didn’t matter.

Cleveland, however, wanted to win the Division without a tie and in front of the hometown fans. They had come back in record fashion against the Tigers, beating them in five of six games over the previous two weeks. Now they would be hosting them for three more games in the third week.

Boston helped Cleveland over the last weekend of the regular season by beating Detroit twice, including Sunday, with a 4-3 comeback victory. For the Red Sox, making the playoffs meant redemption from a rocky spring that saw Boston commit the sin of a questionable trade.

The Red Sox shipped perhaps their best player at the time, Rafael Devers, off to the San Francisco Giants. The Sox had disrespected Devers with the off-season acquisition of free agent Alex Bregman from Houston.

Apparently, Boston Manager Alex Cora and the front office misled Devers about whether Bregman would be pushing him from third base to designated hitter. When that happened, Devers refused but eventually relented.

However, after several injuries resulted in Devers being asked to play first base, he refused to budge and was subsequently traded. The Red Sox seemed to have been forgiven by making the playoffs, even though it was for three straight playoff games in the Bronx.

That’s because in the current best two out of three MLB Wild Card playoff format, all three potential games take place in the home park of the highest seed. Therefore, the Guardians, Cubs, Yankees and Dodgers host the Tigers, Padres, Red Sox and Reds this week, respectively. The winners advance to the Division Series, where they will face the higher-seeded Phillies, Brewers, Blue Jays, and Mariners on Saturday, beginning a best-of-three series.

Following that will be the Pennant Championship seven-game series in each League. Those winners will then meet in the 121st World Series, which begins Oct 24. The best four-of-seven-Series starts at the home park of the team with the best regular season record.

With the baseball season giving way to football, hockey and basketball, the question arises: which sport is predominant in the United States? Can baseball still be considered America’s favorite pastime?

No matter the answer, this will always be true: If you want to really understand America, you must understand baseball, and if you don’t understand baseball, you can’t really understand America.