It’s an archaic notion, straight out of
1969, 1993 or at least 2011.
Win the division or go home. yankees
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No wild card. No second wild card. No
safety net, to borrow the radioactive political term. The American League
Central is old school: one bid, two teams, 10 games left.
The new wild-card round has transformed
races across baseball … except for this outlier. In every other division, the
second-place team is a viable contender for a wild card. Baltimore (AL East)
has the AL’s first spot, one game ahead of Oakland (AL West). In the
National League, Atlanta (East) is close to
clinching the first wild card, St. Louis
(Central) holds the second, and Los
Angeles (West) has hope — albeit faint — of catching
the Cardinals.
Not so in baseball’s Big Ten, where the
Chicago White Sox hold a one-game lead over the Detroit Tigers. Winner to the
first round, loser to the first tee.
“Right now,”
Tigers manager Jim Leyland said Sunday, “these are playoff-type games.”
Yet, neither the Tigers nor the White Sox
look ready for October. By record, at least, the AL Central champion will be
the worst first-place team in baseball.
The Minnesota Twins, with one of the
majors’ lowliest pitching staffs, swept the Tigers in a Sunday doubleheader in Detroit. The Tigers lost
the nightcap, 2-1, after producing only one extra-base hit: Miguel Cabrera’s
one-out double in the first inning. Minnesota
starter P.J. Walters, who entered with a 6.39 ERA, held Detroit to a lonely run on five hits in six
innings.
The White Sox, meanwhile, are 1-5 since
defeating the Tigers last Monday in what appeared to be a decisive blow in the
division race. They’ve scored an average of 1.6 runs during their past five
games, all defeats, including a weekend sweep in Anaheim. Adam Dunn has one home run in
September. It only seems like Kevin Youkilis has one hit in September. And they
begin a four-game series Thursday against the Rays, the AL’s top pitching club,
with Cy Young favorite David Price set to pitch the finale.
Chicago has the AL’s
seventh-best record. Detroit
has the eighth. In a 14-team league, that’s the definition of mediocrity. But
following a careful review of the baseball rules and advanced probability
theory, it appears that one of them has to go to the playoffs. (No truth to the
rumor that the Tampa Bay Rays tried to become the Green Bay Rays in an effort
to qualify for the AL Central title.)
“It’s always
been our goal to win the division,” Tigers catcher Alex Avila said. “The way
the teams in the East were playing, they just kept winning games and it was hard
for us to keep up as far as the wild card. We’ve always had our goal on the
division. If we keep plugging away, we’ve got a shot to get it.”
Even before the inaugural wild-card round —
scheduled for Friday, Oct. 5 — the change in postseason format can be called a
success. Outside of the AL Central, teams that would have been afterthoughts
under the old system are still competitive. In the NL wild-card standings, the
Cardinals, Brewers, Dodgers and Diamondbacks are six or more games behind the
Braves. They would be on the verge of elimination if it weren’t for the second
wild card.
Frankly, the No. 2 wild card is the NL’s
lone source of pennant-race intrigue. The Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco
Giants clinched division titles over the weekend, and the Washington Nationals
(with a comfortable lead on Atlanta)
secured their postseason berth last week. If this were last year, we’d need to
pass the time with the always-popular discussion: So, who should this team want
to face in the first round?
The lack of divisional drama in the NL is
one consequence of the league’s stratification. Competitively speaking, the
haves and have-nots are further apart than they have been in a generation. For
the first time in the wild-card era, the NL is on pace to have two teams over
.600 and three below .400 in
the same year. The AL
is more balanced, with all of its teams compressed between winning percentages
of .600 and .400. nike nfl
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“It’s felt
like (the playoffs) for weeks,” Avila said. “There’s an extra spot. You can
tell, the last few weeks, with the nail-biter games that have been going on —
not only between us and whomever we’re playing, and whomever the White Sox are
playing. But Baltimore, Tampa Bay,
the Yankees — it’s like the playoffs have already started for most of us.”
The White Sox and Tigers are average teams,
but the outcome of their race could have far-reaching implications on the
heated AL MVP debate. Angels center fielder Mike Trout is having an ordinary
September (.802 OPS) but likely will remain a favorite of sabermetric-minded
voters. Cabrera, though, can win over those within the Baseball Writers’
Association of America who believe elevating a team into the playoffs is a
chief qualification for the award. If the Tigers reach the postseason — and the
Angels do not — Cabrera’s case becomes more compelling.
Cabrera begins the week ahead or tied in
the Triple Crown categories — the latest in a season anyone has done so since
Carl Yastrzemski won it in 1967, according to STATS LLC. Cabrera’s most
comfortable advantage is in RBI (133 to 123, over Josh Hamilton). Cabrera and
Hamilton are tied for the AL home run lead at
42, but Hamilton
hasn’t played since last Tuesday because of sinus problems; Cabrera will
probably have more plate appearances over the rest of the year.
The stiffest challenge to Cabrera’s Triple
Crown bid may come in the batting race from AL Central rival Joe Mauer. A
three-time batting champion, Mauer is in a virtual tie with Trout at .323 — not
far behind Cabrera at .331.
As outlandish as this sounds, the odds may
actually favor Cabrera’s bid at history. He has exceptional career numbers
against the four starters he’s due to face during this week’s series with Kansas City: Luke
Hochevar (1.342 OPS), Bruce Chen (1.430), Jeremy Guthrie (1.143) and Luis
Mendoza (1.194).
His tentative opposition for the final six
games: Scott Diamond, P.J. Walters, Liam Hendriks of the Twins, followed by
Guthrie (again), Mendoza
(again) and Royals rookie Jake Odorizzi. No Cy Young candidates among the
group. cheap wholesale jerseys
For now, though, Cabrera and the Tigers are
focused on the AL Central race. The records aren’t pretty, but the finality is
real — a throwback division in this avant-garde season.