NATIONALS, A’S SHOCKED IN ’18

As the final week of the Major League Baseball regular season dawns, USA TODAY’s power rankings remain largely unchanged — the top nine are intact as playoff races settle.

It’s a different story looking back on our preseason rankings. Oh, the usual suspects are there: the defending champion Astros and National League champion Dodgers atop the list, though our panel somehow down-voted the Red Sox into a No. 7 preseason ranking. Hey, nobody’s perfect.

The biggest rises and leaps, however, could hardly be foreseen. The Nationals were our preseason No. 4 squad, and rightly so, having won 97 games the year before and facing what appeared to be soft competition in the NL East. They were eliminated from playoff contention over the weekend and have fallen to No. 15, befitting a .500 team.

Meanwhile, the Athletics ranked 26th entering the season. They will finish just shy of 100 wins and have risen to No. 4 in our rankings, just behind a Yankees squad they’ll very likely meet in the American League wild-card game.

From 1 to 30, how they stack up now based on voting from our nine-person panel: