The Weekly MLB Rundown 09.26.08: Playoff Bound!

Posted by A.J. Stevens on 09.26.2008

Four more teams enter the hunt for October gold! We've got all you need to know about the final weekend of regular season baseball here at the Rundown!



LEADING OFF

Here we go folks... what we've waited the past 159 games for -- it's the final weekend of the regular season! Let's get right to it, shall we?

YOUR PLAYOFF TEAMS AS OF PRESS TIME

	East	Central	West	Wild Card
AL			Angels
NL		Cubs	Dodgers

We also know that the Rays and Red Sox will be somewhere in the AL playoff mix... we just don't know where, and won't find out before the column is due, unfortunately. Those pesky deadlines...

THE PLAYOFF PICTURE CLEARS UP SOMEWHAT

Since last we met, Constant Reader, we've had almost half of the playoff picture come into view. While I'm a fan of long, drawn-out playoff races, the writer in me wants some of these to hurry up and wrap up already so I can write the typical "predictions" column. In any case, this past week sure has been exciting. Here are how the playoffs would be structured if the season ended right now (at deadline):

Here's this week's Educational Break: how are playoff matchups determined? It's simple, really, and based upon the Wild Card team. The Wild Card team will play the team with the best record, unless they are from the same division. Then, the WC team would play the team with the next-best record. Whew, I'm glad that got cleared up.

So on Thursday (before this column's deadline), both the Rays and the Diamondbacks lost. The former means that the Rays will watch the Red Sox game tonight to determine if the AL East crown will be in Tampa for the first time ever, and the latter means that Arizona's affair with major league baseball in 2008 will end on September 28.

TRIVIATA: If you're a pitcher who hit a grand slam this year, you've hit it off a Met.

In a game against the Cubs on 9/22, Mets pitcher Jonathon Niese gave up a bases-loaded round-tripper to Jason Marquis. This was the second grand slam hit by a pitcher this year. The first one was slugged by none other than Mariners pitching pheenom King Felix Hernandez, who belted one out of Shea on June 23 off of Johan Santana. In a year that has seen some embarrassing pitching performances by the Mets overall, this is another in a long list of footnotes that the Mets (and Mets fans) are going to look back on and wonder why the team wasn't more successful.

DOWN TO THE WIRE: TWINS VS. CHISOX

*This* is baseball, folks, when two teams in a virtual dead heat for a division title go head-to-head in the final week of the season. One team goes to the playoffs, one team watches the playoffs from their couches at home. The only thing better would be if it was the last series of the year, but one can't have everything.

The series has started off interesting, with the White Sox starting Javier Vasquez for the first game. Sox manager and noted blowhard Ozzie Guillen has a strange way of motivating his players: in an interview, he said that Vasquez wasn't a "big-game pitcher" and would probably struggle. Maybe this was to get a rise out of his player and get him to perform better, but I've read How to Win Friends and Influence People. One of the principles in there is "Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to." I'm no master of the English language, but I'm fairly certain that what Ozzie did is the exact opposite of this advice. Vasquez came through in spades, too: 4 IP, 5 ER, takes the L and drops to 12-15 on the season. Great job, Ozzie. How does this man still have a job? He's like this generation's Billy Martin, except more publicly obnoxious.

Wednesday's game saw the Sox trot out ace Mark Buehrle give up only three runs in seven innings, but unfortunately, that was two runs too many as the Sox dropped another one to the Twins, 3-2. This moves the Twins 1/2 game back in the division, with the final game of the series featuring the Pale Hose's breakout star Gavin Floyd vs. brilliant-in-August Kevin Slowey for the Twinkies.

After this game, the Royals come visit Minneapolis, while the Indians make a trip to Chicago. It's hard to call those two series at first blush, because the Royals are, well, the Royals, and the Indians have been disappointing. The Sox are batting .667 (10-5) against the Tribe this year, and the Twins are a just-slightly-better .733 (11-4) against Kansas City. The Royals can play spoiler, though, as they are just coming off a three-game sweep of the Tigers and will be throwing veteran Gil Meche and phenom Zack Grienke against the Twins. Cleveland will be kinder to the Sox, starting AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee on the final game of the season, and two other guys before that.

After all this, the division may still not be decided until the last day of September. ESPN.com states:

"From a rainout on Sept. 13, the White Sox still have a potential makeup game with the Tigers. If the White Sox and Twins are a half-game apart after the completion of Sunday's games, the White Sox would have to play Tigers on Monday, Sept. 29, at U.S. Cellular Field. If the outcome of the game placed Chicago in a tie with Minnesota, the White Sox and the Twins would play on Tuesday, Sept. 30, at U.S. Cellular Field to determine the AL Central champion."

Wow... and you thought the NL East/Wild Card was complicated.

SO... HOW'M I DOIN'?

A few weeks ago, I made some bold (well, boldface, at least) predictions as to when - and who - the divisions would be clinched. Since next column is going to be mostly about predictions, I thought I'd give a little preview and see how my most recent predictions have done:

The Rays will clinch the AL East on 9/23 in Baltimore. Whoops. The Rays clinched a postseason berth on 20th, and then the division on 9/25 against the Tigers. I was kinda-sorta close on this one.

The White Sox clinch the division on 9/28 against Cleveland. Hasn't happened yet. Just got done talking about these matchups above, and anything is still possible. Outcome hazy, ask again (wait -- the Magic 8-ball was last week's gimmick).

The Red Sox clinch a playoff berth on 9/21 against Cleveland. Wow. Not only has Cleveland been relatively disappointing, I've had them losing to every potential playoff team in my predictions. Well, what can you do? I was off by a couple of days here, as they didn't clinch until the 23rd, then jumped around the field spraying Bud Light everywhere. John C. McGinley approves of this use of non-league-sanctioned light beer. AMEN!

The Phillies will clinch the division title at Washington on 9/27. This is looking more and more real every day. Right now the Phightins' magic number is a cool 3, with an off day today before the Nats come in to stink up the joint. The Mets played the Cubs on Thursday and will welcome the Marlins over the weekend. Even though Florida has been eliminated from the playoff picture, they've still got a strong team that would like nothing better than to finish the season on a high note and help the Mets drop a division title two years in a row.

Cubs win the division, and Brewers win the NLWC. They will trade victories and clinches in their final series of the year. Well, I don't think anyone saw the Brewers' collapse coming, and the Cubs have been dominant with an extra helping of tough over the past week. Right now the Brewers and Mets are in a virtual tie fo the Wild Card, and I still see this coming down to the last series of the season, possibly even the last day. In the end, though, I'm sticking with my pre-season pick: the Mets. HA! Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?

Diamondbacks win the NL West, etc. Sigh. Way to not play, guys.

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND
Now with Extra Bonus Rant!

Cubs-Brewers Will the Cubs rest their starters and set up strong for the postseason? Will the Brewers continue their slide into the depths of despair?

Yankees-Red Sox The Sox are guaranteed in; the Yankees are guaranteed out. How will this affect one of baseball's most storied rivalries? Will this be the game that Fox decides to show on Saturday, even though it has no post-season implications whatsoever?

Whatever the heck Fox decides to show. You know, when I was growing up, ESPN barely existed. There were no "superstations" like TBS. Cable TV had about 55 channels and no remote control, and the only baseball I got in my house was the Saturday Game of the Week. Now, things have changed. I have satellite TV that lets me watch darn near any game I choose. ESPN has shows like "Baseball Tonight" which provides highlights and what passes for hard-hitting analysis nightly. And FOX, for some insane reason, still insists on televising a Game of the Week. Their TV arrangement is something like this: they choose 3 games, all of which start at 4:05 PM ET, and then send a crack team of announcers out to broadcast the game. The game you get to watch depends on where you live. The announcing teams are almost uniformly bad, and in some cases (Joe Buck-Tim McCarver), unlistenable. (For the record, the best team they've fielded this year was Matt Vasgersian-Mark Grace.) Any game that starts before 4 PM ET, cannot be broadcast nationally. So we're stuck with a three-hour marathon (four if you count what passes for their pre-game analysis and This Week in Baseball, which is a shell of its former self) of crappy TV, with no alternatives if you're a baseball fan. Next year I think I'm going to go with XM Radio, where Derek and Dave promise me "every team, every game".

And please, someone take the microphone away from Ken Rosenthal. He is a horrible "sideline" reporter, adds absolutely nothing to the game, and appears to be in a who-can-be-the-most-smug contest with Joe Buck.

OK, I'm done now.

CLOSING IT OUT

My goodness - I can't believe that it was just a few short months ago that I was staring at an e-mail from Ashish, saying he liked the writing sample I submitted and would like me to write about baseball for 411mania. Excited would be an understatement. Now, it's the other end of the baseball season, and the 30 team race has been reduced - almost - to an 8-team tournament scramble for the gold. We'll be with you throughout the playoffs, hopefully with some extra-special coverage as the Division Series and Championship Series begin to take shape. Catch you later, and thanks for reading! -AJS