The Blue Jays lack coaching and leadership. No accountability, no hitting coaches.
The Cubs called up their top prospect, outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, earlier this week. He made his first MLB start yesterday, and made a couple of nice catches in the outfield.
His parents, Matthew John Armstrong and Ashley Crow, are both actors, and were both in the cast of the TV show Heroes. 29 years ago, his mother starred in the movie Little Big League, in which she played the mother of a 12-year-old boy who suddenly becomes the owner of the Minnesota Twins.
Jackson Rutledge, pitcher for the Nats, made his MLB debut last night. It will forever be remembered, but not necessarily for his pitching performance.
So could Pete Crow-Armstrong make A Little Big League of Their Own ?
I’ll show myself out.
Looks like Ohtani is done for the season even if the Angels won’t announce it.
Saying nothing but telling us everything.
And it’s official: on the IL for the rest of the season.
With some luck, he will never play for the Angels again.
The Cubs seem to be willing to give up their Wild Card spot, with Arizona winning 4 of their (so far) 5 games against each other. Bad time for Candelario to go on the IL. The bullpen is tired, the starters are fading some. Hopefully the return of Stroman will be a shot in the arm.
And the Dodgers clinch the NL West again. Not a surprise, since the Padres laid an egg all season.
I’m still hoping for someone other than the Dodgers or Braves to win the National League.
After the four game disaster against Texas, Toronto is back in a wild card spot; while they beat Boston twice, the three teams they can catch ALL lost twice. There are three teams in the AL West vying for the division title or a wild card and all of them over the last month or two have looked like they were destined for a division title but also at another point looked like they had forgotten how to play baseball.
Fangraphs has the Jays as having roughly two chances in three of making the playoffs. While I assume they have their reasons, I don’t think it can be that high, can it? I would assume that number starts with the fact that there are two Wild Cards to be had (one is certain to be Baltimore or Tampa Bay so there are only two up for grabs) and Toronto will be one of three teams up for those two spots, since one of the other competitors gets in with the AL West division title. So, okay, they have to be one of the two teams out of three that make it, and those teams are all very close to tied. Makes sense.
However, Toronto
-
Isn’t as good as those teams. They just aren’t. They have the worst run differential by a fairly meaningful margin, only win very close games, and have been surviving on the most astounding pitching that can’t sustain itself, and
-
They have a tough remaining schedule; after today, all their games are against Tampa Bay, an excellent team with a high motivation to win, and New York, a decent team the Jays have played very, very badly against, and then
-
Toronto does not have the tiebreaker against either Seattle or Texas.
Toronto’s remaining opponents have a combined .535 winning percentage - by far the highest remaining strength of schedule of any AL team.
Orioles beat Tampa 8-0 giving them a 7-5 season series lead with one game between them remaining, giving them the tiebreaker which could very much come into play.
Somehow the Royals have managed two victories over Houston, thus opening the door for either Texas or Seattle. But the Rangers have also lost their last two games (to Cleveland), while Seattle dropped two games to the Dodgers. With two weeks to go, Houston leads Texas by half a game, and Seattle by a game and a half. As @RickJay just mentioned, two of these three teams will be in the playoffs, and possibly all three.
Incientally, Fangraph’s playoff odds for the remaining AL contenders:
Orioles, Rays, Twins: all in. Well, the Twins are 99.9 percent.
Astros - 93.1
Rangers- 77.8
Blue Jays - 65.8
Mariners - 62.4
This adds up to 74.8 percent per team so that makes sense as they have 3 playoff spots to win and you have to account for the fact a few other teams are not technically eliminated yet, even if their chances are tiny.
I am not entirely sure why the Mariners get the shortest end of the stick. They ARE currently on the outside, but by half a game behind a team they hold the tiebreaker with.
Incidentally, the idea of a team missing the playoffs because of a tiebreaker formula makes me sick. This is baseball, not some horseshit league like the NHL or NFL. Ties for in/out of the playoffs should be decided by playing a baseball game.
Rangers and Mariners play each other in 7 of the last 10 games; the last four of the season are in Seattle.
Well, the Jays won again today in dramatic fashion.
I think the chances of them making the playoffs hinges more on the fact that the Rangers and Mariners play each other seven times. One of them will go 4-3 at least. In that time, the Jays could go 3-4 and losing just one game against one of them. So they only need to be have more wins against the loser and right now, after sweeping the Red Sox, they have a full game lead on Seattle and half a game on Texas. The Mariners as I write this are behind 5-1 in the 7th against the Dodgers. If one team goes 5-2 or 6-1 against the other, that pretty much assures Toronto of the third wild card. They still have to win of course but it seems the algorithm thinks they can get enough wins these last two weeks.
Base on their run differential, the Padres (72-78) have an Expected W/L record of 84-66. They are 6-22 in one-run games and 0-11 in extra innings.
Someone out there really pissed off the Baseball Gods.
Can you spell S-O-T-O ?
Cubs on a 5 game losing streak and got swept by Arizona this weekend. The Division is now essentially lost and they’re back to a tie with the Marlins for the 2nd/3rd place wildcard, but with the Reds and Diamondbacks just a half-game back.
Remaining series - Pirates, then Rockies at home, followed by the Braves then Brewers on the road to close out the season.
I remain slightly hopeful especially since the Braves have already clinched and the Brewers likely will have clinched by the time we play them.
That’s what he gets for forcing his way out of Washington. He was my favorite player, but I have no sympathy.