Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

The state of the playoff races, September 8, 2013

At the start of play today, the six division leaders have magic numbers of:

  • 9 – Atlanta, NL East
  • 11 – Los Angeles, NL West
  • 12 – Boston, AL East
  • 16 – Detroit, AL Central
  • 19 – Oakland, AL West
  • 20 – St. Louis, NL Central

If the wild card playoff games were held today, Cincinnati would be at Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay would be at Texas.

The AL 2nd wild card spot is shaping up to a wild, although somewhat ugly race. The Rays went 21-5 in July and they have been 13-20 since then. If the Rays lose today in Seattle and the Orioles beat the White Sox and Cleveland beats the Mets, there will be a 3-way tie for the 2nd wild card at 77-65. And if the Red Sox beat the Yankees and Kansas City beats Detroit, the Royals and Yankees will have the same record, tied for fourth in the wild card race, just 2 1/2 games out.

A pentagonal race for a playoff spot? Perhaps that is fitting when we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of baseball’s saddest pennant race, the 1973 NL East, won by the Mets with an 82-79 record and had the top five teams in the division still in contention starting the final week. The Mets clinched the division in the first game of a doubleheader at Wrigley Field the day after the regular season was supposed to end before a crowd of 1913. The second game was called off. The Pirates lost their final game to the Padres that day in another makeup.

 

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7 Comments

  1. Bob_Hendley

    Argh! We were up 4 games on Aug 30th, before losing nine in a row courtesy of the ‘Stros, giants and Pads.

  2. michaelgreenlasvegas

    Just a little trivia about that Mets clincher. According to their wonderful broadcaster, Lindsey Nelson, after that first game, they went in the locker room and drank champagne. Then it hit them that they had a second game and were in no condition to play it. Augie Donatelli, the league’s senior umpire, was the crew chief and checked under the tarp, and concluded that the field was too wet for play. Actually, the Mets were too wet.

    • btimmer

      The Mets-Cubs game was played during some rain and it was pretty cold. They weren’t going to play the second game unless it was necessary in any reason. If the Mets had been swept and the Pirates had won, there would have been a 3-way tie for first among the Mets, Cardinals, and Pirates.

      The Pirates lost 4-3 to the Padres with Randy Jones driving in the winning run for the Padres. The Padres actually had an extra day off before the game. They finished the regular season on a Saturday because the Chargers had a home game on the following Sunday. And everybody thought the September 29 3-2 loss to the Dodgers would be the last game in San Diego as it was believed the team was moving to Washington.

      • michaelgreenlasvegas

        Bob, you may well be right. But I wonder what would have happened if it had been a nice day!

  3. KT

    Dodgers lineup:
    Crawford LF
    Puig RF
    Gonzalez 1B
    Ramirez SS
    Uribe 3B
    Ethier CF
    A Ellis C
    M Ellis 2B
    Kershaw P

  4. KT

    Bill Plunkett @billplunkettocr

    #Dodgers Hyun-Jin Ryu threw 40 pich bullpen today. Back felt fine. Ready to go on Wednesday.

  5. btimmer

    NPUT

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