Starting a new thread as the pennant races heat up with about 22 games to play.
Yankees and Red Sox are just 3 and 3 1/2 games behind the Jays in the AL East. All 3 teams look like locks for the postseason.
Detroit continues to waltz to the AL Central title. Closest pursuer is KC, 9 1/2 games back.
Astros haven’t been great lately, but Seattle has been worse. Houston leads the Mariners by 3 1/2 games.
While the Yanks and BoSox will likely be wild-cards (if they don’t win the division), Seattle is trying to hang on to the 3rd slot. There are 4 teams within 3 1/2 games of them, with the red-hot Rangers just 1 1/2 games back.
In the NL East, the Phillies continue to maintain a comfortable lead of 6 games over the Mets.
Brewers lead the Cubs by 5 1/2 games, and neither team is playing particularly well at the moment.
The Dodgers, despite being just swept by the Pirates (!), still lead the Padres by 2 games. San Diego is just 2-8 in their last 10.
Cubs, Padres, and Mets hold the 3 NL wild-cards. Giants trail the Mets by 4 games; 3 other teams are right behind San Francisco.
Toronto opens a huge 3-game series against the Yanks this evening.
Mariners have been slumping, and it isn’t because of their hitting. Their relievers just aren’t doing very well this year and that’s costing them right now as they are just underperforming even compared to earlier this year.
This seems to be a big chunk of the Brewers’ slump right now, too. Most of the starters have continued to be good-to-great, but it’s been the bullpen catching on fire which has lost the close games in the last couple of weeks. It doesn’t help that Trevor Megill, their All-Star closer, blew three saves in his last four outings, then went on the IL with a flexor strain in his pitching elbow; the Brewers are currently hoping he can make it back by the end of next week.
Davey Johnson, an All-Star second baseman, who became a successful manager, leading the '86 Mets to their win in the World Series, died yesterday at age 82, after a long illness.
As a player, he was a starter for the Orioles, then the Braves, winning two World Series with Baltimore. As a manager, he was best-known for his tenure with the Mets, but he also had winning records in his tenures with four other teams: the Reds, Orioles, Dodgers, and Nationals; he was known for his analytical approach to managing, even before sabermetrics became dominant in the game.
The Brewers won tonight, while the Cubs lost; Milwaukee now has a 6.5 game lead in the NL Central.
With three weeks, and about 20 games, left in the season, Milwaukee still has the best record in baseball (despite a mediocre couple of weeks), and is sitting at 88-55. They’re barely on pace for 100 wins now (technically, 99.6 with their current winning percentage), so we may well have a season with no 100-win teams.
On the other end:
The Rockies already reached 100 losses earlier in the week. They aren’t quite as awful as they were earlier in the season, and are now on pace for around 116 losses – still terrible, but a little better than the '62 Mets or the '24 White Sox.
The White Sox have shown signs of life over the last few weeks, with a few young players, like Colson Montgomery, giving some hope for the future. They’re on pace for 61-101, which is a huge improvement.
The only other team that’s a real threat for 100 losses are the Nats (on pace for 65-97); the Twins (on pace for 71-91) and Pirates (on pace for 73-89) would have to fall apart to reach that negative milestone.
Tonight Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers took a no-hitter into the ninth in Baltimore with LA leading 3-0. He got the first two outs of the inning, then gave up a solo home run which of course broke up the no-hit bid. At that point, he was removed from the game in favor of reliever Blake Treinen. Treinen gave up a double, hit a batter, then walked the bases full. After another walk forced in a run and made the score 3-2, Treinen was pulled and Tanner Scott came in. He promptly allowed a single that plated two runs and the O’s walked it off, 4-3.
Today’s Seattle/Atlanta game is only available on Ruko (whatever the fuck that is). But “don’t worry” they say. You and watch for free on the Ruko app. Fuck that. I’d rather skip the game than download an app I don’t want (and may not even work on my TV, who the fuck knows?)
I don’t know how much Ruko is paying for this privilege, but they’ve lost any chance of ever having me as a customer in the future. It’s bad enough with Apple wants to broadcast a game. Or youtube, for fucks sake. Make it stop.
Roku (not Ruko) is the largest streaming provider in the world. The company has been around since 2002, and was involved with helping Netflix develop its streaming service. They started offering home streaming devices in 2008, and for the past 10 years have been integrating their streaming technology into smart TVs. We’re watching the Mariners destroy the Braves from the app built into our TLC television; no need to download or install an app or set up an account.
If you have a smart TV make sure it doesn’t already have it.
My understanding is that it’s the first time a team has gotten this close and lost the game, I don’t know if it’s the first time they’ve blown it this close (and won anyway).