Written by Cory Puffett
Published August 3, 2026

We are now in the final week of the regular season and we two playoffs spots entirely up for grabs and all four seeds left to decide.

Cory Puffett and Rich Blostad will face off in the game of the week to decide the the top two seeds. The winner will be the AOA East champion and the #1 seed. The loser will earn the first wild card but will still be the #2 seed.

Sam Martin plays against Eric Meyer and, thanks to his big win over Cory in the Week 19 game of the week, controlls his fate. He will earn the second wild card spot if he beats Eric Meyer, which should be a pretty simple task.

Meanwhile, Stephen April and Cory Frontin also have matchups that should be layup victories for them. They are tied atop the AOA West, have split their head-to-head series this season, and have identical records against division opponents. Stephen has a comfortable scoring lead, too, so a win over Sean Kennedy will most likely secure him the division unless Cory Frontin can have a massive week.

Where things have the potential to get interesting is with each of their head-to-head results against Sam Martin.

Cory Frontin tied his season series against Sam, but he's facing an even larger points disadvantage than he is against Stephen, so he really needs to win the division. He'll be rooting for Sean Kennedy in a big way this week.

Stephen April lost both of his head-to-head matchups against Sam, so he already can't overtake Sam regardless of whether Eric can pull off the upset, meaning he has to beat Sean and avoid ceding too many points to Cory Frontin.

In short, while those last two spots are not clinched officially, it would be a huge upset if Sam isn't the #3 seed and if Stephen isn't the #4 seed by this time next week.

Players of the Week

Catcher - Cal Raleigh, 5.50 points (Eric Meyer)

1st Baseman - Rafael Devers, 6.65 points (Sean Kennedy)

2nd Baseman - Brandon Lowe, 10.35 points (Alex Mayo)

3rd Baseman - Alex Bregman, 11.75 points (Eric Meyer)

Shortstop - Francisco Lindor, 12.35 points (Rich Blorstad)

OF - Yordan Alvarez, 12.90 points (Cory Frontin)

UTIL - Bryce Harper, 9.60 points (Stephen April)

SP - Sandy Alcantara, 21.95 points (Cory Puffett)

RP - Aroldis Chapman, 16.65 points (Sean Kennedy)

We had no repeat players of the week this week, but it was nice to see a couple players appear on this week's list after long droughts. Francisco Lindor hasn't been the highest scorer at his position since Week 7 of last season while Sandy Alcantara hadn't led starting pitchers since Week 13 of the 2022 campaign!

Aroldis Chapman has been a huge part of the Red Sox recent run toward playoff contention. He was the only player of the week in Week 19 who had appeared on the list in either of the past two weeks.

Rich Blorstad remains atop the power rankings this week. It is his 26th #1 ranking in his career.

Alex Mayo has now been at the bottom of the power rankings for 14 weeks in a row. This is his 28th career appearance at the bottom of the power rankings.

Note: MLB issues stat corrections up to 7 days after games. These corrections will be applied to games, including those that have been completed, but these articles will not necessarily be updated with those stat corrections.