Baseball playoff update 9-30

As I predicted, this will get a lot shorter today as fewer games are meaningful. Tonight the Yankees locked up home field throughout the A.L. playoffs, thus the playoffs in both leagues go through the Big Apple. Also, Oakland’s loss to the Angels leaves them in the #3 seeded spot in the American League – thus all that’s left to decide is where the Tigers and Twins end up. They’re still tied as both lost tonight, the Tigers blowing a 5 run lead to the Royals.

But the National League stayed jumbled as Philadelphia won to stay alive while the Dodgers moved back into a tie for first in the N.L. West.

I’m writing this early in the A.M. and will bury this in the morning since there’s other stuff I’ll write on today.

American League:

1. New York (97-63, clinched A.L. East and home field throughout playoffs).

2. DETROIT (95-65, tied for A.L. Central lead with Minnesota). The Tigers will know how the Twins fared today because they have a 7:10 p.m. start while Minnesota plays a real matinee game, they have a 11:10 a.m. local start. Kansas City will again provide the opposition and they send out Ambiorix Burgos (4-5, 5.60) against Zach Miner (7-5, 4.37) of Detroit. The magic number for Detroit dropped to 2 with the Twins losing.

3. Oakland (92-68, clinched A.L. West and will be #3 seed).

4. Minnesota (95-65, tied for A.L. Central lead with Detroit). The Twins will have to get up early for this one, the reason they play the 11:10 a.m. local start is because the Metrodome also hosts the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team. And if there wasn’t enough rivalry between the Twins and Tigers, the Golden Gophers host the University of Michigan Wolverines for the Little Brown Jug trophy tomorrow night (go Blue!)

But the baseball game takes precedence, and the Chicago White Sox will start Jon Garland (17-7, 4.61); he’ll face Minnesota’s Matt Garza (3-5, 5.32).

National League:

1. New York (95-65, N.L. East champions and home field through N.L. playoffs).

2. San Diego (86-74, tied for N.L. West lead with Los Angeles). As with the Detroit/Minnesota situation in the A.L. the Padres win the tiebreaker because of a 13-5 season mark against the Dodgers. So if both teams win or the Phillies lose, this would be the order in the event San Diego and Los Angeles tie for first. First things first though – the Padres send out David Wells (2-5, 4.80 between Boston and San Diego) against Arizona’s Edgar Gonzalez (3-3, 3.86). Magic number for a division title stays at 3 for the Padres but their playoff magic number is now 1.

3. St. Louis (82-77, leads N.L. Central by 1 1/2 games over Houston and 2 1/2 games over Cincinnati). The Cards won tonight and with help from Atlanta beating Houston, their magic number dropped to 2. More importantly, it lessened the chance of playing a Monday makeup contest with San Francisco. Milwaukee provides today’s opposition for the Cards, the Brewers have slated Ben Sheets (6-7, 4.05) as their starter while the Cardinals tap Jeff Suppan (12-7, 4.18) as their pick.

4. Los Angeles (86-74, tied for N.L. West lead with San Diego, lead wild card by 2 games over Philadelphia). A LA win (or Phillies loss) puts Dodger blue in the postseason, but it could be Sunday before the order is determined. Tomorrow they send out veteran Greg Maddux (14-14, 4.26 with the Cubs and Dodgers) to face the barely half his age Matt Cain (13-11, 4.09) of the San Francisco Giants.

5. Philadelphia (84-76). Both the Padres and Dodgers could be in the playoffs before they start tomorrow as the Phillies play a 1:20 game in Florida. It’s Randy Wolf (4-0, 5.24) out to keep the Phillies alive, he goes up against Scott Olsen (12-9, 3.97) of the Marlins.

6. Houston (81-79). With the Rocket fizzling tonight, the Astros are now all but on the bubble as they continue play in Atlanta. Rookie Chris Sampson (2-0, 2,10) is listed as the Astros’ starter but Phil Garner’s been known to pull out all the stops in situations like this. The Braves are much more likely to give Lance Cormier (4-5, 5.00) his appointed turn.

7. Cincinnati (80-80). They held on tonight by beating Pittsburgh, but the situation comes down to needing 2 more wins and rooting for Atlanta and Milwaukee, plus a San Francisco treat on Monday. Heaven help us if all three of these N.L. Central teams finish 82-80, which is mathematically possible. What’s more likely though is Cincinnati’s Bronson Arroyo (14-10, 3.27) taking on Pittsburgh’s Marty McLeary (1-0, 3.38).

But it IS possible that this would be the last installment of this series and Sunday’s games rendered meaningless if the right combination of teams win. I’ll likely know this by about 10 p.m. tonight.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.