The Nats visit Atlanta this weekend for what’s unquestionably the Braves’ last chance to get back into the NL East race. At 8.5 GB with 18 to go, they’re nearer to elimination than to the lead. And really only a sweep will do them any good - taking 2 of 3 leaves them 7.5 back with 15 games to go.
The Braves have played the Nats tough this year, but the Nats have definitely come off on top in the season series so far, so I’m feeling good about the weekend. Looks like we’ve got Detwiler, Jackson, and Gio pitching in Atlanta.
In league-shaking news, the Astros get Jed Lowrie back and he immediately wins them a game. Looks pretty likely that they will clear 50 wins this year, though they can still have history’s worst road record. (non-Cleveland Spiders edition)
I clearly don’t understand the new Wildcard system, so maybe you guys can explain it to me. There are 7 teams within 5 games of the Lead in the Wildcard standings, but ESPN gives the Braves a 98.9% chance of making the Postseason. Does their estimate of Play-off chances take into account the records of other teams left on the schedule or something more complicated I can’t figure out? Seems that the Braves could lose three straight while the Cards and Dodgers each win three straight. All of a sudden the Braves are in third place in the Wildcard standings.
The Dodgers are two games out of the play in game - two games behind St. Louis, that is. They are not two games behind Atlanta; they are in fact SEVEN games behind Atlanta.
Ah, that makes a lot more sense. The way ESPN reports the Wildcard standings is very confusing. They make it look like Atlanta and St. Louis are tied at the top. I suppose I should’ve looked at the actual records before jumping to that conclusion.
The Red Sox are in town to play the Blue Jays. Perhaps I’ll head down to the stadium and see what really, really awful baseball looks like. Last week’s series was some pretty bad baseball, but I think these two teams can outdo themselves and produce some gut-churningly, eye-bleedingly terrible baseball.
A Google search for “Bobby Valentine beleaguered” returns 18,800,000 hits.
Can someone comment on the strategy in the Baltimore-Tampa Bay game yesterday? It appears that Tampa Bay moved their DH, Evan Longoria, into the field in the bottom of the 9th in a tie game, meaning that their pitcher would have to bat if/when the game went into extra innings.
Then Ryan Roberts hurt himself in the 11th inning, and they sent up another pitcher, Craig Archer, as a pinch-hitter even though they had position players remaining on their bench.
Yes, it is confusing – the various outfits publishing standings haven’t figured out a way to clearly mark the distance between the two currently-qualifying WC teams yet. It would be good info to have so fans of, in this instance, the Braves could know whether they need to bite their nails or not. But as you can see if you look at the records, the Braves have a comfortable lead over the #2 spot.
It’s not exactly difficult to simply look at the league standings in their standard format, see who besides the division leaders have the best records, and compute how many games above .500 each WC contender is. And keep in mind that the difference between two teams in games above/below .500 is twice the ‘games behind’ number of games.
For instance:
Team Games above .500 (GA.5)
Braves 18
Cards 8
Dodgers 4
Pirates 2
Brewers 1
Phils 0
Maybe the way they should show this is to (a) define it in terms of the second WC qualifier, but indicate that the lead WC qualifier has games ahead, and mark that by a plus sign to indicate games ahead, like so:
The AL could be a very interesting place these last few weeks.
Oakland’s now threatening Texas. (How did Billy Beane do this?) Tampa Bay is staggering but still in the hunt and you should never count Joe Maddon out. And in the AL Central, it’s winner take all because it doesn’t look like the loser of that race will get a ticket to the wild card game.
I’d love to see a tie involving 3 or more teams at 84-78 or 85-77. A 5-way tie would be perfect - you’d need 3 days’ worth of games to determine who was the second wild card team. (I know, the odds against it are astronomical, but a guy can dream. I’m all for anything that will throw a monkeywrench into the plans of the MLB brain trust, such as it is.)
On the AL side, even though I’m not following the races closely, I’m loving it - can’t believe the A’s have pulled within 2 games of the Rangers, and the other races are only 1 game apart.
Meanwhile, my Nats still need to win 1 game in Atlanta to quench any Braves’ hopes of winning the division, having lost two 1-run games over the past 2 days. Last night was particularly disappointing, with the good guys failing to hold a 4-run lead. Hopefully Gio can do the job on the mound today, and get some run support. This would be a great place for him to become a 20-game winner.
Well, after a disappointing couple of days, the Orioles managed to take the third game of the series against Oakland.
Baltimore is now one game back of the Yankees, and four games ahead of Tampa. The Orioles are looking better and better for a shot at the wild-card game, and they still have a chance to peg back New York for the division win.
Baltimore will need to keep an eye on the Angels, though; Los Angeles are only two games behind them in the wild-card race.
Yeah, that was a rough series. Nats were playing some sloppy ball, but man did the Braves look good. Kimbrel, the Braves closer is so intense he’s kind of terrifying.
My pleasure of watching the M’s win is pitted against my schadenfreude of watching the Yanks suffer this next series with the M’s playing the O’s. If the M’s lose this series, their chances of reaching .500, my fan goal for this season, are virtually eliminated. On the other hand, they’ve already won more games this year than last and aren’t playing for more than pride. I may find myself rooting for the O’s.
Speaking of rooting for other teams, I’m rooting hard for the Pirates to get out of their skid. I feel really sorry for their fans. This season had so much promise, but is ending in a collapse. Go Pittsburgh!
My feelings on this are simply that Escobar should be cut from the team. The franchise is disgraced, and they made things worse today with an utterly bullshit press conference, a lame apology, no explanation that anyone believed, and a completely inappropriate response. The GM, Alex Anthopolous, was on the local sports talk radio station this afternoon and put on a stonewalling, imbecilically awful performance that, to be honest, sounded like he was speaking at gunpoint.
I was willing to wait out today’s press conference to see if there was some kind of explanation for why a grown man would take tothe field in uniform with an offensive slur written on his goddamned FACE, and why 40 players, trainers and coaches would somehow all fail to see it (and many of them speak Spanish, including the team’s manager) and do nothing. No explanation was given; Escobar said basically “I didn’t mean anything by it, derp derp, I apologize to anyone who was offended” and everyone else claimed ignorance.
If I appeared in public in my professional capacity sporting a vile, bigoted slur written on my person, I would be fired. That’s it; no suspension, straight to dismissal. The president of the company I work for would be fired if he did that. Anyone would. This isn’t the same thing as something yelled or done in the heat of the moment, which can be, fairly, somewhat explained by emotion; this was an act of either deliberate offense or of such raw, deep stupidity that the man shouldn’t be trusted with something as dangerous as a baseball bat.
I find it offensive Escobar will be wearing the Blue Jays uniform again this year.
