MLB: September (and October regular season games)

The Game Room
1

Stretch run, baby!

Here’s the situation:

AL EAST
Toronto 76-57
Boston 2 GB
Baltimore 4 GB
New York 6.5 GB

My suspicion as a Jays fan that Boston, not Baltimore, was the real threat is proving true; the Orioles have slipped significantly (see Wild Card standings.) Boston and Toronto will fight this one out, and play each other six more times, including the last weekend of the regular season. New York is still around the fringes, which I find amazing given that the team’s aging roster is all collapsed or traded away. Joe Girardi for Manager of the Year.

AL CENTRAL

Cleveland 76-56
Detroit 4.5 GB
Kansas City 7.5 GB

It is very unlikely KC could catch Cleveland and really I don’t think Detroit will, either, but 4.5 games is not exactly “let’s print up the ALDS tickets” safe.

AL WEST

Texas 80-54
Houston 8.5 GB

This race is over, but I wanted to point out that Texas has 80 wins already despite scoring only a few more runs than they allow; their Pythagorean record is 69-65. That is a HUGE difference; they are 30-8 in one run games, which isn’t a consistent ability. They’re gonna win the division and all, but I do not think they are actually the AL’s best team, and in fact I don['t think they’re one of the three best.

AL WILD CARD

Boston @.0 Games Ahead
Baltimore, Detroit Tied
Houston 1 GB
Yankees 2.5 GB
Kansas City 3GB
Seattle 4 GB

The striking names here are Baltimore, who led the division for a long time and are now in danger of no playoffs at all, and Kansas City, who one month ago were eight and a half games out of a wild card and looked dead. They’ve gone 19-9 since. Given that they’re the double defending pennant winners I would not be surprised to see them storm back into a Wild Card game.
NL EAST
Washington 78-55

Well, that’s it. No one is close. Say what you will about Dusty Baker, but he wins.

NL CENTRAL
Chicago 85-47

Joe Maddon, too. Chicago is fifteen games ahead of St. Louis, and St. Louis right now is a wild card team. The Cubs have the lowest team ERA in baseball, the best offense in the NL (Colorado has scored a few more runs, but, Coors Field) and are the best fielding team in baseball by defensive efficiency rating. Their WORST regular player is Jason Heyward. A playoff-shortened version of their pitching staff would present the opposition with an above-average pitcher in every single inning. They’re just an NL team, you say? Chicago is 13-4 in interleague play. They are the best team in baseball by a long shot and one of the best we’ve seen in years.

NL WEST
Los Angeles 74-59
San Francisco 1.5 GB

The rivalry continues unabated. The Dodgers and Giants play each other another six times, including the last weekend. Who knows?

NL WILD CARD

San Francisco 1.5 Games Ahead
St. Louis
Mets 1.5 GB
Pirates 2.5 GB
Marlins 3.5 GB

There aren’t any other teams with wining records; the NL is a much less competitive league than the AL right now. My suspicion is that the Cards are a better team than they’ve played so far and will keep this looking more or less the same, maybe even getting home field for the play-in.

2

The NL East looks wrapped up for my Nats, I agree, but I take nothing for granted… and we haven’t had any playoff success in our two previous division-winning seasons, either.

3

plus Toronto (2 games ahead of Boston).

In terms of run differential, they’re
Boston
Toronto
(big gap)
Houston
(big gap)
Detroit
Seattle
Baltimore
New York
Kansas City

I also looked at the schedules, and in their last 29 games (30 for New York), Detroit, Seattle, and Kansas City all face 13 or 14 teams with better than .500 records, New York has the toughest schedule with 23 teams with >.500 records, and Houston and the other 3 AL East teams all face 19 or 20 winning teams. Looks like the smart money would be on Boston and Detroit making it through.

Personally I’m rooting for Houston and New York, because it would play merry hell with all the “which teams helped themselves at the trade deadline” stories.

4

If you had told me before the season started that Toronto would lead the AL in runs allowed on Sept 1, I would have put the over/under on the lead they’d have in the AL East at a lot higher than 2 (although I just checked and last season they were top 5 in the AL, so I guess they were better in that department than I thought).

5

Dammit, Giants!

6

Told you they’d come crashing back down to earth. That roster just does not scare me and their run differential is only +7.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox had their fist off day yesterday since August 8. And now they’re on the West Coast. After this trip they have 2 series a piece with Toronto, Baltimore and NYY down the stretch. The MLB schedule is an unkind one.

7

Why isn’t David Ortiz getting the Farewell Tour tonguebath that David Jeter and Mariano Rivera got?

8

I have two conflicting thoughts about this year’s Cardinals team.

  1. They are pretty awful, at least compared to the last decade or so. Painful to watch at times, very boom or bust on the offense, and with every pitcher in the rotation (save maybe Carlos Martinez) a candidate to blow up at any moment. I’m pretty terrified that even if they make the WC game Mike Matheny is almost certainly going to try to line up Adam Wainwright to pitch that game.

  2. They may just win the WC play-in game and then knock out the best Cubs team in, what, 100 years? Because of course they would… Although that probably jinxed them.

9

As a Cub fan, Jas09, I’m taking nothing for granted with this team. I won’t think about the World Series until they get there. And, if they win it all, I doubt I’ll accept it until the 2017 season starts.

10

If they win it all, I’m going to a bar and picking up a beautiful chick if I can, because the end of the world is nigh, and I am not dying a virgin.

11

If they win it all, my social life will certainly pick up. Because Hell will have frozen over, and the cheerleading squad from high school will finally be ready for all of those dirty thoughts I wished for back then.

Note: for the purposes of this fantasy, they are all over legal age. They just still LOOK like they did in high school.

12

Will Steve Bartman be invited to walk in the victory parade down Michigan Avenue? That would be awesome.

13

That man was unfairly maligned for doing what any fan would have done

14

True, and there was no guarantee the Cubs would have won the World Series in an case. (Similar situation with Bill Buckner and the Red Sox). The human brain likes to simplify things to key moments that determine bigger consequences, but the real world rarely works that way.

But all this belongs in another thread…back to the last weeks of the 2016 MLB season!

15

Bizarre play courtesy of MLB (minor league ball):

16

I’m hoping that it is because the gimmick has gotten tired and Vin Scully has been the one receiving the farewell tour.

17

Horrible “no-swing” call in the Indians/Marlins game, though there’s no guarantee that it changed the outcome of the game.

via http://cbssportsapp.com

18

I was watching that game and just about lost my mind, and I was ROOTING for the Indians. But that’s just embarrassing. I’ve often thought it likely that first and third base umpires were guessing half the time when they make those calls, and that certainly does nothing to change my mind. I think Mattingly would have gotten tossed if it hadn’t been so obvious that the crew had blown the call.

19

Why are the A’s bringing up players from Nashville when the A’s season is done and Nashville has two games left in their season and are in the AAA playoffs? There’s no reason for that.

20

Have you weighed in on this in the thread about umpires and appeals to 1B/3B?