The 2026 Major League Baseball regular season will be coming to a close in two weeks, which means that the Arizona Diamondbacks have little time to secure their spot for October.

Heading into Monday’s slate of games around the sport, Arizona is fourth in the National League Wild Card race, and with 12 contests left on the schedule and only the top three teams from each league’s Wild Card picture getting a postseason bid, the Diamondbacks are running out of time to punch their ticket.

After dropping two out of three games to a near-equally desperate Texas Rangers team, the Diamondbacks will kick off the middle part of their last homestand of the season by hosting the Miami Marlins.

Recently, Stephen J. Nesbitt and Chad Jennings of The Athletic released their list of contenders that have the easiest and toughest paths forward to the end of the regular season. For the Diamondbacks, the strength of schedule was assessed at .485, and their playoff odds were set at 31.4%.

After being talked about as a team that could get back to the playoffs earlier in the season, Miami comes into this series with a 74-76 record and is five games behind the Diamondbacks for the fourth-place spot Arizona currently occupies.

The Marlins have not been officially eliminated yet, but their playoff hopes are running razor-thin. However, crazy things happen in baseball all the time, and Arizona does not want to allow them to make a run. 

Miami has not posted a winning record since 2023, and even if the Marlins fail to make it to October, they certainly do not want to go out as losers — no one does. The Diamondbacks need to be on their best behavior here.

The following series against the New York Yankees is going to be much harder, and it will conclude the Diamondbacks’ time in Chase Field this season unless they can get to the playoffs. With an 86-63 record, New York is currently dominating the American League Wild Card picture, and there is a chance it can still take the AL East.

Ideally, the Diamondbacks need to win the series against the Yankees, but they certainly cannot get swept.

After battling New York, Arizona will take the show on the road against the Colorado Rockies.

This might be the last “gimme” series of the season, and I say “might” because even though the Rockies are currently the owners of the worst record in baseball, they have shown resolve at times, and they are a better team at home.

This is a situation where the Diamondbacks cannot play with their food. Ideally, they need to sweep this series to give themselves the best possible chance before what is shaping up to be a season-defining series against the San Diego Padres.

To conclude the regular season, the Diamondbacks will visit the Padres at Petco Park for a three-game slate from Sept. 25-27. Heading into Monday’s games, San Diego holds a 2.5-game lead over Arizona for the third and final Wild Card spot in the NL.

Depending on how both clubs play over the next 11 days, the winner of the series when they battle each other can depend on who packs it up for the offseason and who lives to fight another day.