As you might have noticed, the postseason schedule came out this week. Take a look at it, and then get your requests for days off while you can: You’re going to want to be home all day for the first couple of weeks of October, that’s for sure.

We obviously have a lot of baseball left to go, and some increasingly sweaty pennant chases to watch play out, but it’s also not unreasonable to want to look forward to the postseason, now that we know precisely when it’s happening.

What are the early postseason storylines, the things to look forward to, and out for? Here’s a look at eight you should be monitoring already.

1. The Orioles and Rangers try to end postseason droughts and win their divisions.

Two of the six teams with the longest timespan since they reached the postseason are currently in first place: The Orioles and the Rangers, neither of whom has made the playoffs since 2016. (The Tigers and Angels currently own the longest droughts, having not made it since 2014.)

Chris Tillman started Baltimore’s most recent postseason game, while Colby Lewis got the ball for Texas. It has been a while! Both teams are well-positioned to reach the postseason, but, even better, they’re also the favorites to earn the top two seeds in the American League. That’s one way to end a skid: By getting a first-round bye.

2. Will there be no Red Sox and no Yankees?

It has been since 2014 that we’ve had a postseason without either of the most hated rivals from the Northeast Corridor, and before that, you had to go all the way back to 1993 since they both missed out. Neither team is out of the playoff chase just yet, but they’re both in considerable peril, because of their own struggles and because of the competitiveness of the rest of the AL East. (The fourth-place Red Sox would be in first in the AL Central, and the Yanks would be only one game out.) You can make an argument that these two teams are in very different places moving forward -- the Red Sox are young and building, and the Yankees seem sort of stuck with this roster -- but in October, they may be standing right next to each other, on the outside looking in.

3. Will there finally be some NL Central new blood?

If you take away 2020 and its expanded postseason, only two teams have represented the NL Central in the postseason since 2018: The Cardinals (three times) and the Brewers (twice). The Cardinals are out of the playoff chase, and the Brewers, while still in first place, are barely staving off the upstart Cubs and Reds, who aren’t just battling for the division title but are also very much in the thick of the Wild Card mix. The Reds have been one of the most exciting teams in baseball all year, and the Cubs have been on an absolute tear since the All-Star Break. One of the most fun aspects of any postseason is seeing teams we do not usually see. The Orioles and Rangers are clearly representing that in the AL. The Cubs and Reds have a real chance to make the same thing happen in the NL Central.

4. Is this the year the Twins finally win a postseason game?

It is the most painful, truly surreal active stat in all of baseball: The Minnesota Twins have lost a flabbergasting 18 consecutive postseason games! Is it worse to have lost 18 straight postseason games or to have never made the postseason at all? (The Twins’ most recent postseason win was Game 1 of the 2004 ALDS against the Yankees. Johan Santana pitched seven scoreless innings.)

The Twins are going to have a very real chance to end that horrific drought this year, though. They’re starting to pull away in the AL Central, which not only gets them in the postseason, it gets them the No. 3 seed ... and thus a best-of-three series at home against a No. 6-seeded Wild Card team. The Twins have hardly been a juggernaut this year -- the struggles of the rest of the AL Central has done a lot of work for them -- but surely they wouldn’t lose two games at home and make the streak 20, would they? Would they? And speaking of that No. 6 seed ...

5. How will the AL seeding play out?

No offense to the Twins, but they’re almost certainly going to have the worst record of any AL playoff team, and they don’t have the sort of shutdown rotation that terrifies any potential postseason opponent. You know who does, though? A whole bunch of potential No. 4 and No. 5 seeds. If you’re a Wild Card team, whom would you rather play in the first round: One of the Astros/Rangers/Blue Jays/Rays ... or the Twins? An excellent argument could be made that you’d rather have the No. 6 seed -- which has the added bonus of missing the No. 1 seed AL seed, whoever that is, if you beat the Twins -- than the No. 4 or No. 5. If it comes down to the last weekend and this is still unsettled, you’d be kidding yourself if you didn’t think any of the teams involved weren’t thinking about this.

6. Can the Dodgers finally win a “normal” World Series?

We have firmly established that the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series absolutely counts: If anything, thanks to the extra playoff round, winning it all that year was even harder than it usually is. However, we have also firmly established that in the court of public opinion -- which absolutely counts, this is sports, after all -- the Dodgers, despite all their success, will never get full credit until they do actually get one in a full season. It’s not fair, but it’s still true. (And the players and coaches even recently went on record that the aftermath of that title felt hollow.)

So: Is this the year? The Dodgers have had all sorts of pitching issues from the get-go this season, and they still haven’t quite figured out how their infield is going to be aligned. They’ve dealt with a division that’s much stronger than it has been in the past. And they didn’t go out and get any big free agents this offseason like many thought they would. Yet here they are: In first place again and looking at a potential first-round bye in the postseason. The Braves are the class of the NL now, but you don’t have to tell the Dodgers that being the class of the NL means you’re somehow bulletproof in the postseason. Fair or not, this era of Dodgers baseball will be defined by whether or no they win another World Series. Who knows how many more chances they will get?

7. The Braves try to start a dynasty of their own.

The problem with all that Dodgers Dynasty talk is that the Braves are building a terrific case of their own moving forward ... and they’ve, of course, already won a World Series -- since the Dodgers have, even. That 2021 team was fun, but didn’t have an injured Ronald Acuña Jr. and, when you look at the roster, it paled in comparison to this team, which, as my colleague Mike Petriello has pointed out, has one of the best lineups in recent memory.

Remember, the 2022 Braves won 101 games ... and this year’s team is better than that one, too. With most of their talent under team control for the next half decade or so, the Braves are as well-fortified as any team in baseball. But ask the Dodgers: No one considers you a dynasty if you only win one. Or, for that matter ... ask the ‘90s Braves.

8. Who is this year’s version of the 2022 Phillies?

Or, if you want to go back a bit, the 2007 Rockies. Who’s the team that no one really sees coming, a team that may have had a lot of issues during the regular season but sneaked into the postseason anyway ... giving them an opportunity to erase all that regular season negativity in one fell swoop. The obvious answer here is probably the Padres, a team whose fans have been waiting for the team to get its act together all season -- and it has just a few weeks left to do so. However, they’ve got a much higher uphill climb to make the playoffs than last year’s Phillies did at this point. The Mariners, a team that felt like a disappointment until its recent winning streak, are another candidate; they’re actually closer to the 2007 Rockies model.

For what it’s worth, one possibility as the team to act like the 2022 Phillies could be ... the 2023 Phillies, a team that has had a ton of underachieving players all year but sure is compiling some good vibes down the stretch.