With just a few days left in the regular season, the AL West might make a particularly mediocre kind of history.

After Tuesday night’s games, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros were tied for first place at 78-79. No full-season division champion has ever had a losing record.

In fact, no team has made the postseason with a sub-.500 record, unless you count a trio of participants from years the playoffs were temporarily expanded: In the 2020 season shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic, Milwaukee and Houston were both 29-31 and made the postseason.

In 1981, the Kansas City Royals went 50-53 overall — but they were the AL West’s top team in the post-strike second half, meaning they got in.

Then in 1994, the Rangers led a woeful AL West at 52-62 when the players’ strike ended the season. Every team in the division was under .500 and no postseason was played.

MLB expanded its postseason to 12 teams in 2022, raising the likelihood that a sub-.500 team would sneak into October at some point. Just a few weeks ago, it looked like the American League could have several clubs with losing marks in this year’s playoffs. The AL Central’s Cleveland Guardians and Chicago White Sox have since reached 81 wins, so that won’t happen. But the AL West title race could still yield a losing team.

In honor of that, here are 10 of the weakest teams to make the postseason, listed in chronological order with their records and run differentials in mind. Note that some of them went on lengthy postseason runs — so don’t count out the Rangers or Astros just yet.

Record: 82-79 (first in NL East)

Run differential: 20

Postseason: Beat Cincinnati 3-2 in NL Championship Series, lost to Oakland 4-3 in World Series

The rallying cry was “Ya gotta believe!” from reliever Tug McGraw. It wasn’t easy when New York was in last place after an Aug. 30 loss, but the Mets went 21-8 the rest of the way to win the division by 1 1/2 games. Tom Seaver (19-10, 2.08 ERA, 18 complete games) was still at the peak of his powers, and New York held the Reds to eight runs in five games in the NLCS — a series best remembered for a brawl involving Bud Harrelson and Pete Rose. The Mets led the World Series 3-2 and had Seaver starting Game 6, but they couldn’t close out the Athletics.

Record: 84-78 (first in AL West)

Run differential: minus-13

Postseason: Lost to Detroit 3-0 in ALCS

The Royals were 11 games under .500 in the middle of July, but they did enough to win the AL West. George Brett hit .284 — his worst average in a 14-year span from 1975-88 — and he was one of just two All-Stars on the team. The other was Dan Quisenberry, who had 44 saves while throwing 129 1/3 innings. He finished second in the Cy Young race behind fellow reliever Willie Hernández of the Tigers. Although Kansas City took the division almost by default in ’84, the Royals improved to 91 wins the following year and won the World Series.

Record: 85-77 (first in AL West)

Run differential: minus-20

Postseason: Beat Detroit 4-1 in ALCS, beat St. Louis 4-3 in World Series

Frank Viola was the star of a pitching staff that otherwise offered little — aside from a trio of big names on the downside of their careers. Bert Blyleven allowed 46 home runs, Joe Niekro posted a 6.26 ERA and Steve Carlton made seven largely woeful starts for this Minnesota team. The Twins could hit, though. Kirby Puckett was third in the MVP race, while Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti and Tom Brunansky each surpassed 30 homers. Home-field advantage wasn’t determined by record back then, so Minnesota had it in the ALCS despite finishing 13 games behind the Tigers, and again in the World Series after being 10 games worse than the Cardinals. The Twins went 6-0 at the Metrodome in the postseason.

Record: 77-67 (second in NL West, wild card)

Run differential: 2

Postseason: Lost 3-1 to Atlanta in NL Division Series

The first wild card in National League history was this Colorado team in a season shortened by the end of the 1994-95 work stoppage. The Rockies’ ERA of 4.97 is the worst of the live ball era by a postseason team in a non-DH league. Colorado made up for that, not surprisingly, by leading the NL in runs. Dante Bichette led the league in home runs and RBIs and finished third in batting average.

Record: 82-80 (first in NL West)

Run differential: minus-42

Postseason: Lost 3-0 to St. Louis in NLDS

Jake Peavy and a Trevor Hoffman-led bullpen helped San Diego reach the playoffs, but this team never looked the part. The Padres scored the fourth-fewest runs in all of baseball, and their starters went 52-60 with a 4.49 ERA. In the postseason, San Diego never had the lead at any point against the 100-win Cardinals. Game 1 was 8-0 after six innings, Game 2 was 6-1 after seven, and Game 3 was 7-0 after 4 1/2.

Record: 83-78 (first in NL Central)

Run differential: 19

Postseason: Beat San Diego 3-1 in NLDS, beat New York Mets 4-3 in NLCS, beat Detroit 4-1 in World Series

The Cardinals won at least 95 games four times under Tony La Russa, but their best postseason success came as a wild card in 2011 and with this team five years earlier. St. Louis nearly blew a seven-game lead in the division in the final two weeks of the regular season, but a roster with Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, Chris Carpenter and a young reliever named Adam Wainwright always had a chance to get hot. Yadier Molina’s homer — and Wainwright’s strikeout of Carlos Beltrán — gave the Cardinals the pennant in an epic series with the Mets.

Record: 85-77 (second in AL Central, second wild card)

Run differential: 27

Postseason: Lost to New York Yankees in wild card game

After 103 losses in 2016, the Twins were in first place for a little while before eventually capturing the AL’s final postseason spot and losing 8-4 to the Yankees. Byron Buxton played 140 games, the most of his career to date, and Brian Dozier hit 34 home runs. Joe Mauer had moved to first base by this point but was still quite good at the plate, batting .305. Ervin Santana led the rotation in his last good major league season. This team certainly wasn’t great, but it was good enough in an AL that produced only five teams above .500.

Record: 84-78 (third in NL East, second wild card)

Run differential: minus-57

Postseason: Lost to Philadelphia 2-0 in NL Wild Card Series

The Marlins posted the worst run differential to date by a postseason team — this year’s Astros are currently at minus-59 — but Miami went 33-14 in one-run games. The pitching staff with Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Jesus Luzardo and Braxton Garrett helped Miami into the playoffs. Of the Marlins’ top 12 players in plate appearances, seven of them finished with negative wins above replacement, according to Baseball Reference. The offense was basically batting champ Luis Arraez, designated hitter Jorge Soler and not much else. Miami lost 93 games the year before this playoff appearance and 100 the year after.

Record: 84-78 (second in NL West, third wild card)

Run differential: minus-15

Postseason: Beat Milwaukee 2-0 in NLWCS, beat Los Angeles Dodgers 3-0 in NLDS, beat Philadelphia 4-3 in NLCS, lost to Texas 4-1 in World Series

Just get in and anything can happen. These Diamondbacks were one of the best examples of that. Arizona started August with nine straight losses to fall below .500, but after doing enough to make the playoffs, they swept two division champions and then won the last two games of the NLCS on the road to capture the second pennant in franchise history. Arizona had a negative run differential in the regular season and was also outscored 30-21 in that series against the Phillies. It didn’t matter.

Record: 83-79 (third in NL Central, third wild card)

Run differential: 35

Postseason: Lost to Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0 in NLWCS

The Reds had a respectable run differential but little star power aside from Elly De La Cruz and the often-injured Hunter Greene. Cincinnati beat out the Mets on a tiebreaker for the NL’s final postseason spot — seven games behind the No. 2 wild card — and then made a quick exit. The Reds’ best month was 15-11 and their worst was 12-15. Simply avoiding any extended slumps was enough to make the playoffs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The NFL is all in on promoting flag football, which makes the Rams-sponsored Girls’ Jamboree on Saturday in Carson another opportunity to show off a sport growing by leaps and bounds.

There are 144 teams scheduled for the fourth annual event that will be played on fields at Dignity Health Sports Park in a format in which teams play games within a group. More than 3,500 athletes will participate. It’s the largest flag football event hosted by any NFL team. Action begins at 8:30 a.m.

One of the teams participating is El Camino Real High, which has yet to play a game. The Royals were one of the most impressive City Section teams in the summer and will finally get started this week.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

This would’ve been fun!

Since entering the league last season, New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo has been a polarizing figure adored by fans. His downhill physicality and high-energy personality make him one of the most entertaining players to root for.

Skattebo fits the identity head coach John Harbaugh wants to build with the Giants, and he’s quickly embraced the Big Apple. However, coming out of Arizona State, his path to entering the league almost looked radically different.

In fact, he almost ended up right back home in Northern California, nearly drafted by the San Francisco 49ers to back up All-Pro running back Christian McCaffrey.

On Wednesday afternoon, Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh spoke to reporters about the team’s upcoming matchup against the Giants. While praising Skattebo’s skill set and character, Saleh dropped a fascinating draft nugget.

“I know going into the [2025 NFL] Draft, we were actually about to draft him in San Francisco,” Saleh said. “[49ers head coach] Kyle [Shanahan] loved him, and he ended up getting taken right before we were picking. I think we ended up with C.J. West, who was a pretty good player too.”

Saleh was San Francisco’s defensive coordinator in 2025 in what was his second stint in the role (he was also the 49ers’ defensive coordinator from 2017-20); New York ultimately selected Skattebo with the No. 105 pick in that year’s draft.

The potential of pairing McCaffrey and Skattebo in the same backfield could’ve created one of the league’s premier duos, maybe even the best since the Detroit Lions drafted Jahmyr Gibbs in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft to team up with David Montgomery?

Shanahan’s reputation for evaluating running backs speaks volumes about Skattebo’s potential in the league. Since being drafted by the Giants, he has hit the ground running, rushing for 527 yards and six touchdowns over his first 10 career games.

After suffering a gruesome ankle injury that limited him to just eight games in 2025, Skattebo bounced back in a big way in Week 1 against the Dallas Cowboys, rushing for 81 yards and a touchdown to power the Giants to victory.

Both franchises are in good hands at the position now, but Shanahan’s interest only reinforces his reputation as an elite evaluator. What could’ve been with a McCaffrey and Skattebo backfield is a fascinating “what-if.”