Sep 15 2008
Rays, Mets, and White Sox
The Tampa Bay Rays, New York Mets, and Chicago White Sox all find that their path to the Post-Season is now a 2-team race. While the Los Angeles Angels have locked up their Division, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs enjoy a some-what comfortable lead.
The Rays have struggled lately with big match-ups against the Boston Red Sox, who sit in 2nd place in the division just one game back. Tampa Bay has been the top team in the AL East all season and for them to lose the top spot will only hurt the young Rays mind set.
The Mets, are the team most are worried about as a Division leader most likely to surrender the top spot and that is because a lack of relief pitching. With no closing pitcher, and the most blown saves in Major League Baseball, the Mets are gonna struggle to keep their division lead.
New York has to worry about the surging Philadelphia Phillies, who behind 1B Ryan Howards bat, have climbed back to one game behind the Mets. This Division race should come down to the wire, if the Mets can manage to hold up in the relief pitching department.
The White Sox sit 1.5 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins in the AL Central and they have sat in First place for most of the season. White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen will not let Chicago slump out of the top-spot, but they have managed to slump to only a 1.5 game lead so this could be another close division race.
The AL Wild Card is pretty much a 2-team race between the Red Sox and Rays, the Red Sox sit in the top spot with a 6 game lead over the Twins. The NL Wild Card is a bit closer and just became more interesting with the firing of Milwaukee Brewers Manager Ned Yost.
The Brewers are currently tied for first in the NL Wild Card race with the Phillies and have out of the blue decided to part ways with their Manager. The Houston Astros have become a part of the race too, and sit 2 games behind the Phillies and Brewers.
This should shape up to be some of the closest Division and Wild Card races in recent memory, and will definitely be an exciting end to the season.
J.M.Saucedo
