Cito Gaston’s last home game as manager of the Jays tonight.
Good bye and happy retirement Cito. You were always a quality act and worthy opponent.
Most of the Jays are rockin’ the Cito 'stache tonight.
Twins tanked a week early this season. Didn’t even wait for the playoffs.
Twins are division winners and definitely in the playoffs…?
Seven and a half up with five to go.
I’m most def missing what cricetus is talking about…
I’m guessing that instead of normally stampeding through the last weeks of the season and then collapsing in the Division Series, the Twins are collapsing a week earlier than normal.
That seems pretty clear. They had home field advantage for the taking but like the Yanks and Tampa are scuffling through the last week instead.
meh… only one of the six teams that has clinched a playoff birth has a better than .500 record over their last 10 games.
Rays 5-5
Yankees 4-6
Twins 4-6
Rangers 5-5
Reds 5-5
Phils 7-3
I think all of them are resting their starters and throwing a mish-mash of guys into their lineups.
That’s where my confusion was coming into play. All the playoff teams have been pretty mediocre lately, for the reason you state. And home field “advantage” in the baseball playoffs isn’t really much of an advantage, except financially for the home team’s owner for getting the extra game. Statistically its pretty damn close.
Oh, well. It was a semi-fun season while it lasted. Too bad nobody from the NL West made it to the play-offs, but you can’t have everything.
The Padres are not quite dead yet.
I figure the likely NL West Division winner has the only chance of stopping Philly from returned to the World Series. I don’t think the Reds match up well and Atlanta really doesn’t. The Giants might pull it off based on their pitching. Starters and Bullpen are probably the best of the 9 potential postseason teams. Of course that offense is not going to make it easy for them.
I think they do, actually. When we played a 4 game series against them earlier in the year the games went 4-3 Phils in 12 innings, 9-7 Phillies in 10 innings, 1-0 Phils in 11 innings and 1-0 Phils in regulation.
Granted, we lost every game (!!!) but we were right there with them. They are probably a little better team now than then too. But still…anything can happen in the playoffs.
Your last sentence is the key one. Especially in a five-game series. Also, while the Reds are 6 games behind the Phillies in the standings, they are only 2 back in X-WL, which is a measure of runs scored versus runs conceded. I’m not a big believer in the whole “Team A doesn’t match up well against Team B” arguments, especially in the playoffs.
The Padres are now pretty much fucked, even though they do still hold their fate in their own hands. It’s been a really disappointing month, after leading the division for almost the whole season.
It looks like my main aim in the postseason is going to be rooting against the Yankees (as usual) and the Phillies.
If I had a nickel for every time a team “didn’t match up well” against someone else and then promptly kicked the snot out of them, I could afford to see a World Series game thjs year.
Tell me about it. 
I was planning on seeing them when they came out to SF in a couple of days, but at this point, it might already be over before they land at SFO.
If the Padres win all three games against the Giants starting today, would their be a one-game playoff between them or does San Diego own a tiebreaker over the Giants?
One game tiebreaker unless they are both already in the playoffs. No team is ever eliminated on a tiebreaker.
Yep. Here’s out it plays for the NL, if i have my calculations right:
- Padres sweep Giants, Phillies sweep Braves
Padres win NL West; Giants get Wild Card; Braves eliminated
- Padres sweep Giants, Atlanta take 1 of 3 against Philly
Padres win NL West; Giants and Braves play one game for Wild Card
- Padres take 2 of 3; Phillies sweep Braves
Giants win NL West; Padres and Braves play one game for Wild Card
Any other scenario, and the Padres miss out. Basically, San Diego needs at least 2 of 3 (preferably a sweep), and needs to root for the Phillies to beat Atlanta.