This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola’s Marlins Beat newsletter. MLB.com reporter Joe Trezza filled in this week with De Nicola on vacation. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

WASHINGTON -- Who’s ready for chaos?

“It’s us against the world,” Jake Burger said.

“We are going to approach every game like it’s Game 7 of the World Series,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said.

Welcome to September and the wild National League Wild Card race, where the Marlins kept themselves in the mix with three consecutive wins over the Nationals to open Labor Day weekend in the nation’s capital. If it’s been a preview of what the final four weeks of the season are going to look like, things are about to get even wilder, so buckle up.

With 26 games left, the Marlins are one of six teams battling more or less neck-and-neck for three Wild Card spots, and one of four clubs packed even tighter fighting for the final spot. What does Miami need to do to get in? Who might be left out? Let’s break it all down.

The standings:

1. Phillies (74-61), 4.5 games ahead
2. Cubs (72-64), 2.0 games ahead
T-3. Giants (70-66)
T-3. D-backs (70-66)
T-3. Reds (71-67)
6. Marlins (69-67), 1.0 game behind

The upcoming schedule: MIA at WSH (1), vs. LAD (3), at PHI (3), at MIL (4), vs. ATL (3), vs. NYM (3), vs. MIL (3), at NYM (3), at PIT (3)

The tiebreakers: Miami holds the first tiebreaker, based on head-to-head matchups, over Arizona (4-2), but not necessarily against San Francisco (3-3) or Cincinnati (3-3). The second tiebreaker is intra-division records. As of Sunday morning, the Marlins (18-21, .462) held the second tiebreaker over the Reds (18-24, .429) but not the Giants (19-13, .594).

The outlook: With 26 games remaining, the Marlins need to leapfrog three teams to capture the final NL Wild Card, which is not impossible, but not ideal. And they’ll need to play their best baseball to do it. As of Saturday afternoon, Miami’s remaining schedule (.536 opponent win percentage) projected as the fourth-toughest in MLB. The Phillies, who hold the first WC spot, are the only other NL Wild Card contender with a remaining schedule with a .500 or better opponent win percentage.

But it’s actually the Cubs’ remaining schedule that might have the most impact on the race as a whole. Eleven of Chicago’s next 14 games are against either Cincinnati, Arizona or San Francisco, with seven games remaining between the D-backs and Cubs alone. The Giants and D-backs also play each other two more times.

The Marlins don’t have any head-to-head matchups remaining against any of those teams, but they do play the Phillies three more times in games that could directly impact the race.

The takeaway: Expect chaos. Only one game separates the four teams jostling for that final spot. And with so many contenders playing each other, things have the potential to flip in no time – especially if the Marlins keep racking up wins.

“We are battling out there,” outfielder Bryan De La Cruz said. “We have one goal, which is to make the playoffs.”