Pennant Race Fever

[Frayed Knot]

5 of the 6 divisions have the first & second place teams matching up this week.
If this were college football, ESPN would dub it with a catchy phrase like "Shake-Out Week" which the rest of the media would then sheepishly follow along with as if it were some kind of official title.


Anyway, in addition to the Mets/Phils battle:

* Sox @ Yanx - 3 games (starts Tuesday):
Although the Boston lead is suddenly up to 7.5 games again (pending the outcome of Monday's NYY/DET game) after dropping from 14.5 down to 4, the Sawx have a chance to put a serious dent in the New Yorkers' WC hopes as well as salting away the division before Sept 1st even rolls around.
Nice pitching matchups: Matsuzaka v Pettitte; Beckett v Clemens; Wang v Schilling


* Angels @ Mariners: Only 2 games seperate them in the West despite Anaheim leading almost every day of the season.
Loser of this race will most likely will ultimately fight it out against the Yanx for the WC
Not sure who the Yanqui fans (and, by extension, us) should be rooting for here? Probably Angels since Mariners are 2 games up in the WC, but Seattle winning could put both teams in play to be caught.


* D-Backs @ Padres
Arizona up by 3 games. Loser still has WC lead.


* Brewers @ Cubs (starts Tuesday)
Final series of the year for these two. Cubs up by 1.5 games as the Brewers have fallen all the way to .500 and have the Cards nipping at their heels.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I have a thing for the Rockies this year, and I'm kinda sitting here hoping they get to the playoffs instead of SD or AZ.

And they can! If they TCB at San Fransisco this week, they'll be right there to start a series in Phoenix. Go Rockies!

[metirish]

Cubs,Cards and Brewers will be great to watch,what happened to the Brewers,a lack of depth ?

[Willets Point]

I can't believe the bleeping Cards are back in this.

[TransMonk]

="metirish"]Cubs,Cards and Brewers will be great to watch,what happened to the Brewers,a lack of depth ?

Dickshot has the Rox, I have the Brewers. Their games start about an hour after the Mets do for the most part, so I usually catch the last hour of the Brewers after the Mets are done.

Milwaukee's lack of depth is showing through. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure why they weren't even mentioned in considering Castillo or Conine to help out their depth this year. Either or both would have been great for them.

Their troubles consist of not being able to tack on insurance runs and blowing leads later in the ballgame. No team is immune to that, but they seem to get bitten by it a lot. They hit a bunch of home runs, but if they don't hit one out of the park, they very rarely have a big inning.

The feeling in the Midwest right now is that the Cardinals are going to come on strong and steal the division from the Cubs and Brewers.

[Willets Point]

TransMonk wrote: The feeling in the Midwest right now is that the Cardinals are going to come on strong and steal the division from the Cubs and Brewers.

Bastards!

[G-Fafif]

Circle your calendars for September 27, when the last-chance St. Louis Cardinals drag their potentially miraculous asses into Shea for a makeup game against the Mets who, quite possibly, can spell the difference between a complete comeback or a dream defused. Would be nice to have Endy out in left for that game.

OR...the Mets stumble around these next few weeks, the East becomes a scary scramble and it's the Cardinals delivering a glancing blow to us.

I could do without another autumnal look at the Cardinals, actually.

[Frayed Knot]

Angels & Padres each ride their aces to a win in the first games of the West division showdowns

- Lackey tossed a complete game shutout in Seattle. Angels now lead by 3 games

- Peavy held the D'Backs to 1 run over 7 IPs and cuts the Arizona lead to 2

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" beat the Twins and turned a 5-4-3 triple play in the seventh inning.

[Vic Sage]

But FK, you hate the wild card!

[Frayed Knot]

Vic Sage wrote: But FK, you hate the wild card!

1) I do?

2) Good thing I was talking about division races then.

[Vic Sage]

1) well, if you don't, you've certainly given me the impression that you do, over the course of its entire existence in MLB.

2) except for the part where you talked about the Yanks and Seattle, you mean. The September stretch drive in the Bronx will be all about the WC.

[nymr83]

i'd love to see the yankees playing meaningless (can't make the playoffs) games at yankee stadium the last homestand of the year

[Willets Point]

Nymr83 wrote: i'd love to see the yankees playing meaningless (can't make the playoffs) games at yankee stadium the last homestand of the year

Or earlier.

[DocTee]

Cincinatti: ten games under .500, six games out of first.

With 18 games remaining against the three teams ahead of them -- Cards, Brewers, and Cubs,-- they could be spoilers at least.

[Willets Point]

I hope they spoil the Cardinals.

[Frayed Knot]

Vic Sage wrote: well, if you don't, you've certainly given me the impression that you do, over the course of its entire existence in MLB.

That certainly hasn't been my intention.
And besides, even if I were against the system - either at its conception or during the time since - it's not like I'm going shun discussion of it by burying my head in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist.


What I have done from time to time is taken Selig and others to task for crediting the WC system for everything short of a cleaner environment. Some of baseball's "ailments" that Selig claims have been solved by the whole expansion/realignment/WC system are ones that those changes have either caused or at least exacerbated: reduced chances for division races, uneven schedules, breaking up of old rivalries, etc.

[nymr83]

]What I have done from time to time is taken Selig and others to task for crediting the WC system for everything short of a cleaner environment

I've noticed Shea looking alot cleaner since they made the playoffs as a wild card team in 1999...

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Where? In the ladies rooms on the field level behind home plate maybe ...

[nymr83]

i was just joking with him, i dont really notice any difference, maybe someone needs to teach them how that fancy power-washer works (if they even have one)

[Guest Kid Carsey]

No need to explain yourself, I was joking too ...

[Frayed Knot]

Update on the showdowns:

AL East:
Yanx have taken the first two behind Pettitte & Clemens
Still a 6-game gap

AL Central: The only division without a 1-vs-2 matchup this week, but Cleveland swept 3rd place Minnesota effectively killing any thoughts they might have of getting back in. Meanwhile 2nd place Detroit loses 2 straight to KC and falls 4.5 games behind Cleveland and 3 out of the WC

AL West:
Angels sweep the Mariners turning the suddenly close 2 game lead into 5.
M's have a pct point lead over the Yanx in the WC



NL Central:
Cubs & Brewers split the first two with the Brews winning last night behind the return of Ben Sheets and keeping them 1/2 game ahead of the Cards

NL West:
Padres sweep the D'Backs creating a tie between the two atop the division.
One more head-to-head for them tonight.

NL East:
Not sure what happened here. I couldn't find any reliable results.






* As I am now Rick Reed, I will be crossing all picket lines for the duration of the next 50 posts

[Willets Point]

I hate the schedule. The Tigers who need to gain ground on the Yankees in the Wild Card have to face Cleveland this week, while the Yankees get the sucky Orioles (who always seem to roll over and play dead vs. the Yankees).

[Benjamin Grimm]

I hoped to find a little bit of comfort in the Baseball Prospectus Postseason Odds Report, but it hasn't been updated yet with Monday's actual results.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_odds.php

How often does this get updated?

It would be nice to see that the Mets are still well over 90% for the postseason.

[TransMonk]

I thought the prospectus website was updated daily.

You can go to http://www.coolstandings.com/baseball_standings.asp?i=1.

Probably not as "smart" as prospectus because it has colors. But it still simulates the rest of the season a million times.

They put the Mets at a 94.4% chance of making the playoffs. 86.9% to win the division, 7.6% to win the WC.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I really need a few Mets wins and Phillies losses to improve my outlook. (I mean that baseball-wise. This potential collapse hasn't cost me any sleep, and I haven't had any other symptoms of depression either.)

[Benjamin Grimm]

They've updated it.

Mets are now at 89.40887 for the division, 6.03581 for the wild card, and 95.44467 for a postseason berth.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Things are getting progressively worse. (No surprise.)

Average wins by position in NL East:  90.6 88.1 83.9 72.5 69.6
NL East           W    L    Pct3  Avg W  Avg L  Champions  Wild Card   Playoffs      1D Change 7D Change
Mets              83   67   .567   90.4   71.6   80.53373    9.78034   90.31407       -5.13060  -9.10332
Phillies          82   69   .533   88.3   73.7   19.25903   28.72052   47.97955        5.80462  28.60356
Braves            78   73   .536   84.0   78.0     .20723     .63746     .84469         .01414  -2.09199
Nationals         68   83   .439   72.3   89.7     .00000     .00000     .00000         .00000    .00000
Marlins           65   86   .465   69.7   92.3     .00000     .00000     .00000         .00000    .00000

Yesterday's action dropped the Mets division hopes by 9 points.

[Guest Mendoza Line]

Just for grins, I did some quick calculations (I'm an actuary by trade, so I deal with statistics more often than is healthy).

Assuming that the Mets and the Phillies each have a 60% chance of winning any given game between now and the end of the season, I came up with an 81.4% probability that the Mets win the division outright and a 13.4% probability of a tie. If the tie mattered for the post-season, there would be a one-game playoff; figure a 50-50 chance that the Mets would win that. So I get an 88.1% probability that the Mets win the division, using a lot of shortcuts and simplifications, and ignoring the Braves and the wild card.

[Benjamin Grimm]

What if the Phillies are at 60% and the Mets at 20%?

Lately, though, it seems like the numbers should be 100 and 0.