AL:
Yanks are now only 2½ behind Boston, We could do it!
Cleveland & Angels are tied with Boston only a ½ game better.
Detroit is now 4½ games out of the Wild Card and a nearly insurmountable 6½ out of the division.
NL:
Mets have dropped to a 1½ lead
Cubs & Brewers are tied.
Arizona is only 1 game over SD.
Best Record is Arizona 1 over Mets & SD.
Wild Card has SD over Philly by 1½ and over LA by 4½
I hope the Yanks take the Division, but mostly I want to face Cleveland in the First Round. It beats facing the Angels. Angels have the Yanks number and the Yanks have Cleveland’s number. I know anything can happen in October, but boy the odds seem a lot better for the Yanks to go against the Indians.
I think the Mets & Red Sox will hold on, but this has the potential to become a legendary collapse for either team.
If Philly can overtake the Mets and eliminate them, it would probably be their greatest moment since the World Series victory. I nice counter to being the first Major League Team to lose 10,000 games.
Cubs just can’t put together a winning streak and shake the Brewers. I still think the Cubs are the better team, but they are not showing it. Neither team should go far in the playoffs, but then last year came down to St Louis over Detroit, so who knows.
I think Arizona might falter and let the Padres take the NL West. I am not sure why, just a gut feeling at this point. Right now, if they do it, with the problems the Mets are having, I would bet on the Padres to return to the World Series.
To me, pennant races are tight and interesting (see proviso below) when there cost of losing the race is not making it to the post season. I enjoy the do or die aspect of the pennant races, not the jockeying for playoff seeding part of it. Under that criteria none of the AL races are really tight and interesting, since at this point the Indians, Angels, Red Sox and Yankees have the 4 slots just about locked up with Detroit all but mathematically eliminated after losing the last two games to Cleveland. The NL is a completely different story, of course.
proviso: Any race the Cleveland Indians win is by definition an excellent one!
Well…the NL is pretty interesting at least. Purists aside, does it really make a pile of hurumphing Bob Costases whether the Yankees or the Red Sox win the AL East? Bragging rights and momentum are about all that race is good for (but the Cardinals proved momentum means nothing anyhow). Unless the Red Sox completely collapse and the Tigers get really hot, the AL playoffs are going to consist of the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, and Indians, seeding TBD.
As a person who grew up in Wisconsin with the Cubs as my NL team and the Brewers as my AL team, the Central race is going to be painful no matter which way it works out. The hated Cardinals pretty much dispatched to the junk pile, my thoughts now turn to the hoped for collapse of the hated Mets. Go Phils! I don’t have much rooting interest in the West.
You can stick a fork in the Dodgers. They’re done. Losing the double-header yesterday pretty much finished us off, barring a plane crash and massive amounts of food poisoning.
Not much to add to how you guys have framed the story; just chiming in to agree with the point of the OP: it’s fun right now.
Actually, I will say one thing: I am in Montreal on business and watched the Red Sox / Blue Jays on Canadian TV in my hotel room. It was fun to hear them puff out their chests a bit at the end of last night’s game when Gagne dumped it for the Red Sox in the 8th and AJ Burnett was one pitch away from a complete game.
they basically said “don’t think the 'Jays won’t affect the postseason!” and then they went into all the combinations coming out of the Jays’ win in terms of Division, wild card and match-ups…none of which involved the 'Jays…
Cubs are killing me right now. Just killing me. They have a very easy schedule the next 2 weeks and they SHOULD be able to pull this one out, but they can’t seem to find their stride and are only still in this because the Brews and Cards both suck just as bad as them.
I just want them to get into the post season. At least give me that much guys.
As a Mets fan I have to say their recent and inexplicable collapse is probably my fault. I complained to a friend that it would be hard to find takers for my extra tickets to the last Saturday home game (on 9/29) since it would likely be a meaningless tune-up game. So of course, I deserve a smiting from the Baseball Gods.
What I cling to for my sanity is the fact that both participants in last year’s World Series, the Tigers and Cardinals, spent September doing the same thing – pissing away sizeable leads – but still clung on at the end to make the post-season (even if the case of the Tigers is was by falling back on the Wild Card slot). And once the playoffs begin, it’s a whole new book to write.
What lurks like a Lovecraftian Thing on the Doorstep in the shadows of my insanity, though, is the memory of the 1998 collapse of the Mets (where they lost their last 6 games in a row after holding a 1-1/2 game lead for the Wild Card, and missed forcing a tie for the Wild Card by one game), and of course the historical Phillies Phold in 1964.
To this Royals fan the escape-from-the-cellar race is the most exciting thing that’s happened to this team in September in years. With a half game separating the Royals and White Sox, and 5 games left between the two teams before year’s end, will the Royals climb up to 4th for the first time since the great fluke of 03? Or is KC destined for another season in last? Dozens, maybe hundreds of fans care about this!
Red Sox fans have basically conceded the division to the Yankees. We’re so conditioned to collapse that our eye is on the wild card. Magic number down to 4 last night, courtesy of the Tigers!
Amen brother (or sister). They should be able to win 6 of the next 10 games with relative ease, unless of course they begin the dreaded choke (that usually arrives late July to early August). NL ball has paled next to AL ball this year, and I think that should my beloved Cubbies manage to claw their way to the top of the NL heap, there’s a good chance the F’ers from NY (I can’t say Yan… without getting physically ill) will be there waiting, and they’ll murder em.
You know it is almost lonely being a Yankee fan. I mean there is probably a good 8-10 million of us but after all, most of the other 80 million baseball fans seem to hate the Yankees.
One of my co-workers is a Phillies and Yankee fan. He is enjoying this week more than anyone I know. He is looking at both teams he hates the most collapsing in an epic way. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that both teams might well make the playoffs even if they lose the division.
Sal Ammoniac, what is the feeling among Boston fans about Gagne? How did you and they feel when the trade happen? I thought that it was a good trade at the time, I think I posted a concession at the time and looked to the Wild Card.
A lot of sports writers said the same thing - I thought they were crazy. They were actually saying “Boston has sewn up the division with the Gagne trade.” My firm belief is that he’s washed up, and he was supposed to be an eighth-inning setup man. They already had one, and a one-inning guy just can’t make that much difference.
It will take some serious doing for the Yankees to win the division, but I’m very happy with how they’re playing, so wherever they finish is alright. Detroit is two outs away from losing to Cleveland again, so they’re practically toast.
I didn’t think the Mets could possibly blow the lead they had last weekend, but a 1 1/2 game lead is almost a crapshoot. As compared to the NL Central, which is just regular crap.
I don’t have much rooting interest in the West.
)
of us but after all, most of the other 80 million baseball fans seem to hate the Yankees.
:eek: :o 