Category: MLB

The season is winding down, and most division winners are firmly locked into their places. However there are still 12 teams marching around 8 open chairs, waiting for the music to stop. The team that has to feel the most pressure is the Detroit Tigers, who have spent most of the season casually atop the division, and now suddenly they can hear the Twins and White Sox coming up behind them and it might be too late to start pedaling harder.

The National League Wild Card still takes a mathematician to figure out who has a chance and who doesn’t, so I think we’ll just have to let the dust settle and figure it all out when it’s over.

We’ve finally gotten another no-hitter (ending the longest drought in MLB history), and although I wasn’t able to fulfill a life-long dream of seeing one in person, or even watching it top to bottom on television, I did get to see the final six outs on live TV, and I thought I was going to cry right along with Anibal Sanchez. I held it back. Barely.

Some other goings on have postseason implications- Mark Mulder is shutting it down for the season to have his torn rotator cuff repaired, Eddie Guardado is doing the same for a torn ligament in his elbow, and superstars Pedro Martinez, Hideki Matsui, and Gary Sheffield are still yet to return. On the other side of the coin, Big Papi is back in the lineup, and Flash Gordon has come back just in time for the Phils. But the loudest whispers on the injury news wire involve a guy named Liriano, and I’m not talking about Nelson.

Another old and crafty left-hander has been shipped from a pretender to a contender, but does the three-time All-Star, two-time Cy Young candidate, one-time 20 game winner, still have anything left in the tank?

Will Ryan Howard chase after the Ruth/Maris homerun mark in his first full major league season?

Will Delmon Young’s work with the bat in his hand be enough to erase the memory of his classless act of throwing one?

And how about those Marlins? Their entire team should just be awarded one huge Rookie of the Year Award to share, but will they have enough talent to keep them close in the Wild Card race? I can guarantee that if they make it to the postseason, they’ll be the number one team nobody wants to face.

And, oh, yeah, I almost forgot, we have new top dog.

The Detroit Tigers seem to have lost their stranglehold on the #1 slot, but keep it because they were able to win two games against the division rival White Sox. Perhaps I’m just an optimist in thinking that National League teams have as much chance at winning a World Series as American League teams, but the New York Mets still hold the #2 slot. The Yankees looked primed to make the upward jump after sweeping the Red Sox in a critical five-game series, but then go and lose two of three to the pathetic Seattle Mariners. As they say, I guess that’s why they play the games.

On a more individual note, two veterans changed teams this week: Jamie Moyer brought his 200 career wins to the City of Brotherly Love and Shawn Green takes his 300 career homeruns to the Big Apple. Two other players had significantly different outcomes with non-baseball related ailments: Tom Glavine avoided surgery on a possible blood-clot, while Chan Ho Park went under the knife, hoping to solve internal bleeding.