I don’t think he’ll win either, nor should he. Britton is having a great year but he’s not one of the twenty most valuable players in the AL, and isn’t even close to being his own team’s MVP. The guy has pitched 59 innings; he’s a part time player. It would be like giving the MVP Award to the righthanded-hitting member of a platoon.
What’s the difference between Britton and an average relief pitcher? 20 runs? Let’s say they’re high leverage runs; 30 runs. Manny Machado’s still far more valuable.
Rick Porcello is 20-4 and JA Happ is 19-4, they’re likely Cy Young candidates. Arietta and Lester may cancel each other out since they pitch for the same team, so it will be interesting to see who gets it in the National League. Maybe Cueto? Or Scherzer? He leads in K’s and has only one fewer win than Arietta and Lester.
I thin the voters are savvy enough to realize Happ isn’t really a great pitcher. He’s just a good one getting lots of run support. No insult to Happ, he’s had a very good year, but his W-L is flukey.
As an aside, you know you’ve been married too long when the play-by-play guy says something about chasing bad balls, and you and your spouse simultaneously begin singing “Bad balls, bad balls” to the tune of the “Cops” theme song.
The couple that watches baseball together, and all that.
And the Indians lose Carlos Carrasco on the very first pitch of the game against Detroit today. Of course, there won’t be news for a little while about whether or not he’s got a broken wrist, but it sure didn’t look good. Potentially a very tough blow for a team that is looking to wrap up the AL Central, with the starting rotation being one of their biggest strengths.
I honestly would not have thought the Blue Jays capable of playing this badly. I’ve never seen a nominally good team, one that played quite well for five months, play such consistently terrible baseball.
It’s not that they’re losing, but they look utterly amateurish. They are still a wild card team but it would be unfair, really, to have a team this bad get a crack at a playoff series.
This is a huge series for the Mariners; it’s a direct chance to pound on one of the teams they have to overcome. Seattle needs this more than Toronto does; the Blue Jays can still lose a few games and recover well enough to make the Wild Card game. Seattle really can’t afford to lose the series but have their best two starters going against a very demoralized team on a road trip.
Seattle has had a good season but so many teams are vying for the wild cards they’ve done it without anyone outside the Pacific Northwest really noticing.
It may just be me, but it feels like pretty much all of the wild card contenders have had stretches where they looked godlike and stretches where they looked like complete crap - even moreso than usual for a long season. Certainly been true of the Astros and to whatever degree I’ve been paying attention seems to have been true at least of the Yankees, Royals, M’s, and Tigers. Maybe the O’s have been a bit steadier?
It’s not just you, it’s true. I’m pretty sure every one of those teams has and some point looked as dead as Julius Caesar.
The Royals (who are in bad shape, but not technically dead) were five games under .500 and in eighth place in the WC standings on August 1.
The Astros were under .500 and way out on June 1. They went 18-8 in June and were a Wild Card team on July 1. They’ve fallen out but have played steady baseball since.
The Mariners were 30-21 on May 29, looking great, and then went 17-26 to be 47-47 on July 19; they have played 32-24 ball since.
The Yankees were 52-52 on the day of the trade deadline and had basically given up by trading away some key parts. Since then they’re 25-20 and still on the fringe.
The Tigers were under .500 as late as June 27.
But the Orioles have just puttered along. They started out very hot and have never been that good since but have never had a really serious slump. They have either been in first place or a Wild Card spot every day of the season beginning with their first game.
It was noted in a story the other day that Seattle isn’t drawing a huge number of fans, and that there is a noticeable bulge in attendance when the Blue Jays show up. Jays people said things like"It’s like home games here." I figured this was an exaggeration but it appears to be true.
Last night’s game, a Monday night game, drew 34,809. That was more than the Mariners drew in any of the games they’d played the immediately preceding weekend. The previous weekday series the MAriners hosted they averaged maybe 16,000 a night. This raises two remarkable observations:
That is a LOT of people crossing the border to see a ballgame, and indeed it may be the case that visiting Jays fans outnumber the home fans, or are close to doing so, and
Why is Mariners attendance so bad? I know they haven’t made the playoffs in awhile but they are in contention, were in contention last year, and are a very interesting and fun team that hits a ton of home runs.
Mad props to Mike Trout, but if the voting was held today, I’d have Mookie Betts at the top of my MVP ballot. He doesn’t get on base as much but he’s ripping it and he’s a tremendous center fielder.
