My final look this season at some of my favorite teams (unless events warrant) as well as the local big league clubs. The Shorebirds will be covered separately in an article Thursday.
I have to start with the team doing the best, my hometown Toledo Mud Hens. They clinched their third consecutive IL West title on August 26th and will face the IL South champion Durham Bulls in the first round of the playoffs. It was Durham who knocked out the Mud Hens when they began this run of four IL West titles in six years back in 2002, so there’s a score to settle. With just today’s game against the last-place Columbus Clippers remaining, the Hens are 82-60 and have a chance to finish tied with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees for the loop’s best mark (SWB is 83-59). Toledo begins the IL playoffs Wednesday at Durham.
Talk about a collapse. At the beginning of August, Detroit led the AL Central by a game over the Cleveland Indians. But only playing .400 ball since (12-18) has set the Tigers back to second, 5 1/2 behind the Tribe and 3 in back of the Yankees for the wild card. So the Tigers are now 73-64 and if they play as badly in September will be lucky to break even.
What bothers me is this quote from Jim Leyland after the Tigers traded outfielder Craig Monroe to the Chicago Cubs:
“It was just a situation where we felt here that, this year, it wasn’t going to get better, and you have to start making decisions on what you want to do with people in the future,” Leyland said. “That’s basically why that was handled that way.”
(The Tigers designated Monroe for assignment, which meant they had 10 days to make a deal for him or allow his release.)
Now maybe Leyland was talking only about the struggling Monroe, but it also sounds like Detroit’s already bagged the season to me – and they’re playing like it. But if they do decide to suck it up, the schedulemaker made September pretty kind. They start with a long homestand against Chicago, wild card contender Seattle, and Texas with a makeup game against Toronto tossed in. Then their last 15 games are against AL Central foes as they travel to Minnesota and Cleveland, host Kansas City and the Twins to close out the home schedule and wrap up at Chicago.
Of course, two teams who bagged the season pretty much after the All-Star break are local favorites Baltimore and Washington.
Let’s see…in the last month Baltimore has allowed an AL record 30 runs in a game against Texas (a game they were up 3-0 after 3 innings, by the way), endured a 9 game losing steak that began with the 30-3 debacle, blew a 6-3 lead by giving up 11 runs in the 8th to lowly Tampa Bay and losing 15-8 in game number 7 of the losing streak, and were no-hit by Red Sox rookie Clay Buchholz on Saturday. I’m not sure if a team’s endured a worse month, even my 2003 Tigers didn’t have moments like that. As it is, the Orioles are 59-76 and now just four up on the last-place Devil Rays. Their elimination number is five so by the end of this week the demise will likely be official.
The minor-league kids sure to be brought up in waves by the O’s will have their first trip be a quickie to Tampa Bay before they return to Camden Yards to meet Boston and Los Angeles. The O’s final road trip of the season takes them to Toronto, New York, and Texas before they finish at home with a makeup game against Kansas City, 3 against Toronto, and 3 against New York where they could impact the playoff picture.
Oddly enough, Washington finds itself with almost the same record as Baltimore (the Nats are 60-77) but they’ve been much more quietly mediocre. They’re also fighting a Florida team to stay out of the cellar as they enter today’s game tied with the Marlins at the bottom of the National League East, 16 1/2 back of the New York Mets. It’s possible they could be out at week’s end as well, their elimination number is 10.
It’s all NL East foes remaining for Washington now after two long trips out west in August. They have 12 straight against the Marlins and Atlanta Braves followed by 13 games to wrap up the year against the Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. The last game in RFK is scheduled for September 23 against Philadelphia.
Except for my Shorebirds coverage, this wraps up my standing reports for the 2007 season. Labor Day is traditionally when people begin getting interested in politics again and this year is likely not an exception because of the absurdly early primary season.
