Standings report: early August

Yeah, I’m a few days late. I like to do this at the end of each month but you know that I like doubleheaders too. Since the Shorebirds had back-to-back ones this week, I didn’t get to the standings report until today.

Speaking of the Delmarva nine, going into tonight’s game against Asheville the Shorebirds are 18-23 for the half and buried in 7th place in the SAL North. Only the woeful Hagerstown Suns are holding them up at the moment. With 29 games remaining on the schedule, the trouble isn’t the seven game deficit they currently trail Hickory by, it’s the five teams that fall between Delmarva and the first-place Crawdads. Both Lake County and Lakewood rest 3 1/2 back, Greensboro is 5 1/2 out, meanwhile West Virginia and Lexington are 6 1/2 back and 1/2 game ahead of Delmarva with identical 19-23 marks. Aside from Hickory, the SAL North is the weaker of the two divisions.

Of the 29 games left, 15 are away from Perdue Stadium (trips to Greenville/Augusta and Lake County/Hagerstown) while 14 are within the friendly confines (3 more against Asheville, 4 against Lexington, 3 against Hagerstown and 4 to finish the campaign against Lake County.) To have a realistic chance at the second half title, Delmarva would have to win 21 or 22 of its remaining games. Hickory is on a pace to go 42-28 so they would need a bit of a collapse by the Crawdads as well.

The news is much, much better for the team representing my birthplace. As they go for a Governors’ Cup threepeat, the Toledo Mud Hens are now blowing out the rest of the IL West. They’ve opened up an 8 1/2 game lead on Indianapolis and sport the loop’s best record at 66-48. My only caution is that the 2003 Mud Hen squad started August similarly and finished on a 5-24 skid. Oh, do I remember that collapse. But aside from a handful of games against Norfolk, Durham, and Richmond (total of eight) they finish inside their division so they won’t have to watch the scoreboard – the Hens can take care of business on their own.

Now to the big leagues. It’s pretty much the diehards who are following the Orioles and Nationals now. And the team goal for both should be to not finish last in their division. Since the O’s are 10 games up on a terrible Tampa Bay squad that shouldn’t be difficult to achieve.

At 51-57 the O’s would need to finish 30-24 for a breakeven season. Since they’re 14 1/2 games back of the Red Sox and 10 out in the wildcard race, that’s really all the Orioles have left to play for. And after concluding this series underway with Tampa Bay, Baltimore plays three teams in the thick of the playoff chase, hosting Seattle and Boston before starting a roadtrip with the Yankees. After that, they play easier teams as they conclude that trip in Toronto and return home for a long homestand with Texas, Minnesota, and Tampa Bay again. Going into Labor Day weekend they hit September on a trip to Boston and Tampa Bay (yeah, they play the D-Rays a lot.)

Meanwhile, at the start of the season it appeared the Nationals could hit the century mark in losses. While they’re by no means the cream of the National League crop, they have rebounded into a halfway decent team and are battling the Florida Marlins to get out of the NL East basement. At 49-60 after a 9-25 start, the Nats have a real good shot at posting a respectable 75 wins. They’re actually closer to the NL East leader (New York) than Baltimore is to the Red Sox, 13 games back. The same goes for the NL wild card as they’re 9 1/2 out there.

Will the Nationals make a sensational playoff run? No, but as I noted they can finish with 75 to 80 wins this season and that’s not a bad base to build from as they open their new park next season. It might be difficult to keep momentum this month though as they wrap up their series with the Cardinals and embark on the first of two long West Coast trips this month (San Francisco/Arizona and Houston/Colorado/Los Angeles) that sandwich a short homestand with Philadelphia and New York. Going into Labor Day they face the Giants and continue that homestand with Florida.

I was a little bit pissed this morning when I checked the standings and found out the Tigers lost again to slip behind the Cleveland Indians. Not only have the slumping Tigers (losers of 8 of their last 10) fallen out of the division lead, now Seattle is nipping at their heels for the wild card lead as the Mariners are only 1/2 game back. At 61-47 the Tigers and Mariners are even in the loss column while the New York Yankees lurk 2 1/2 out.

The Tigers just opened a huge homestand with division rival Chicago, to be followed by Tampa Bay and Oakland. But the stretch between August 14-27 will likely determine their playoff fate. The Tigers play 13 straight games against the AL Central-leading Indians and the Yankees – the first 6 on the road, the last 7 at home. Then they head off to Kansas City and Oakland again as Labor Day passes.

So now you’re up to date on how my teams are doing. After Labor Day I’ll wrap up the minor league teams and take another look at how the bigs are doing. Hopefully Detroit will be firmly cemented back where they belong, in first place.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.