We have but one weekend left in the 2019 season. We have finally made it. But the season is not over today. If the season ended today, we would all be very confused, and one suspects there would be considerable protests.

The fun part of “If the Season Ended Today” projections is imagining those matchups. When baseball teams play each other as many times as they do in a postseason series, you learn all sorts of new information about both teams. They can bring out the best and the worst in each other. So, today, we look at the “If The Season Ended Today” projections and preview the series that would result … even if they may turn out to be imaginary. And don’t worry: We get real ones next week.

• 2019 Postseason schedule

American League

Wild Card Game, Wednesday: Rays at A’s

The two lower-payroll upstarts battling it out for the opportunity to face the Astros, who just finished up their third consecutive 100-win season. You should expect all sorts of “small-market upstarts in the Wild Card Game! What about the poor television networks?” stories resulting from a Tampa Bay-Oakland matchup, but you don’t care about that: You’re a baseball fan! These are two young, exciting teams. And anything that gives a national stage to Matt Chapman, Austin Meadows, Tommy Pham and Marcus Semien is aces in our book.

AL Division Series: Wild Card winner vs. Astros

The Astros get this spot for running down the Yankees in the final weeks. Despite those 100-plus-win seasons the last three years, this would be the first year the Astros actually came into the playoffs with home-field advantage throughout the postseason. The Astros have never played either the A’s or the Rays in the postseason before, but, to be fair, they haven’t been in the American League that long.

ALDS: Twins vs. Yankees

It’s the nightmare scenario for the Twins. As will cause any Twins fan to weep while telling you, they notoriously have lost five straight postseason series against the Yankees, spanning 10 postseason games. (The Twins have actually lost their last 13 postseason games. Their last postseason victory was Oct. 5, 2004, over the Yankees. Johan Santana threw seven shutout innings, and Jacque Jones homered off Mike Mussina.) The Twins have had one of their best seasons ever this year, and set MLB records along the way. And their reward, once again: the Damn Yankees.

National League

Wild Card Game, Tuesday: Brewers at Nationals

The Brewers somehow reached the postseason for the second consecutive year despite losing defending NL MVP Christian Yelich with three weeks to go in the season. Their reward is Max Scherzer. The Nationals have never played the Brewers in the postseason. This is actually the first Wild Card appearance for both teams; it would leave the Dodgers, the Marlins, the Phillies and the Padres as the only National League teams that have never played in the Wild Card Game. Note, too, that if these two teams end up tied at the end of the regular season, the Brewers will host.

NL Division Series: Wild Card winner vs. Dodgers

The Dodgers have taken on both of their potential opponents in the last three years, the Nationals in 2016, and the Brewers in 2018. The Dodgers will have the advantage over any team they play, but despite the crazy September run, the Brewers look a lot different without Yelich than they did in the 2018 NLCS. (At least he and Manny Machado won’t be fighting this time.) The Nationals’ rotation is one of the few that can matchup to the Dodgers’. The Dodgers are good enough not to have to cheer for or against any potential opponent, but you’d have to think they would prefer a Yelich-less Brewers than that Nationals rotation (not to mention all those young hitters and Anthony Rendon).

NLDS: Braves vs. Cardinals

This is pretty much assured, if it happens, to be known as the Infield Fly Series. Braves fans are still furious about how an infield fly was called in the 2012 Wild Card Game, snuffing out a potential Braves rally in what was Chipper Jones’ last game. It is worth remembering, as MLB Network’s Harold Reynolds pointed out at the time, that the umpires did make the correct call.

Suffice it to say, that explanation has not assuaged the fury of Braves fans. You’ll see that highlight over and over this whole series, if it happens. The Cardinals and Braves have met four previous times in the postseason: that Wild Card Game in 2012; the 2000 NLDS (which the Cardinals swept -- the first game of that series was the Rick Ankiel wild pitch game); the 1996 NLCS (in which the Braves came back from a 3-1 deficit to win, in Tony La Russa’s first season as Cardinals manager) and in the 1982 NLCS (which the Cardinals swept, beating Braves manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Bob Gibson).