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Getting into the penultimate weekend of baseball’s common season, a lot is in flux. The calming half is the Nationwide League. Each division race is wrapped up and the Wild Card will turn into a matter of which pair of groups are the odd ones out between the Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, Miami Marlins, and Cincinnati Reds. The American League might be chaotic. The AL Central is determined and congratulations to the Twins for being the seventh-best staff within the AL — if Minnesota is even that top on the totem pole — surrounded by crappier groups. The craziness that would be the closing 10 days of the Main League Baseball season really comes down to at least one matchup: The Texas Rangers vs. Seattle Mariners.
The Mariners and Rangers will play seven instances over the subsequent week-plus, beginning with three in Arlington tonight and 4 within the Pacific Northwest to finish the season. Seattle has a house sequence towards Houston sandwiching these battles towards the Rangers, whereas Texas may not see Globe Life Subject once more till 2024, as a highway journey to face the Angels is its second-to-last sequence of the season. Benefit Rangers, as a result of the Astros didn’t full a hearth sale weeks after attempting to be consumers on the commerce deadline. Additionally, benefit Texas, who holds a 5-1 file towards Seattle from its earlier two sequence this season. The Rangers and the Mariners are at the moment tied for the ultimate Wild Card spot with the very same file, 7.5 video games forward of the soon-to-be-eliminated Yankees and a half-game behind the Blue Jays. And to complicate issues, each Seattle and Texas are a half-game out of first place within the AL West, the place Houston is at the moment on the helm. Bear in mind the Rangers’ slide on the finish of final month? They’d mainly be assured a playoff spot proper now even when they performed .500 ball. Now they need to battle to maintain their season alive previous subsequent weekend.
The American League will little doubt have the extra thrilling playoff race, as a result of regardless of which six groups make the minimize, 5 have an opportunity to win the pennant. In fact, I’m excluding the Twins, with out the bounce from taking part in the AL Central greater than anybody else, this is likely to be a .500 staff at finest. How the Rangers and Mariners beat up on one another will seemingly be the catalyst for which groups end the place, with one main roadblock that may’t be dominated out — Toronto doing a north-of-the-border nostril dive.
Toronto might need one of many hardest schedules left in baseball, with a sequence towards the Yankees sandwiched by seven video games towards Tampa Bay. Regardless of the Rays already clinching a playoff spot, they’re nonetheless preventing for the AL East crown towards an Orioles staff everybody exterior of the Chaps Pit Beef lovers of the Allure Metropolis thinks will implode finally. Baltimore nonetheless hasn’t, and credit score to the O’s for not letting a petulant proprietor convey down the complete group. Tampa goes to battle for all the things in these video games, making the Blue Jays a sitting goal. Seattle and Texas may win three video games from taking part in one another and nonetheless simply make the playoffs.
My prediction? Baltimore hangs on to win the AL East, however not because of the efforts of the Rays to catch them. We get all three eligible AL West groups within the postseason, with a colossal Rangers vs. Rays one-off Wild Card sport on the horizon. Seattle claims the ultimate Wild Card spot and rides that each one the way in which to the ALCS, the place the heavy-hitters winner meets it between Texas, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore. And all that chaos to lose to Atlanta within the World Collection.
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