Today is Friday, Sept. 18, and the Oakland A’s have 10 games left in their regular season. They currently hold a six-game advantage in the AL West division, over the Houston Astros, and that means it’s time for one of the best countdowns of the year — the Magic Number.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of the magic number, or have heard of it but never understood it, here’s a quick summary. It measures how many positive results a team must rack up in order to mathematically clinch whatever they’re chasing, using a combination of their own wins plus the losses of whoever is chasing them.