Baseball Nearing The Post Season With A Few Surprises Left


Early celebrations, no AL Central clinched

One of them won't be a miraculous and historic downfall of the Detroit Tigers who, despite bumbling their way through the last month or two still managed to clinch an AL playoff spot since 1987 yesterday with a rousing 11-4 victory over the lowly KC Royals.

The Tigers had been losers of 90 games for five straight seasons until this year and lost 119 lgames as recently as 2003 so even though they haven't clinched the AL Central yet (still 1 1/2 games ahead of the surging Twins,) they have already accomplished something of merit besides being the hottest team of the first half of the season.


AL MVP darkhorse candidate Joe Mauer was at it again yesterday

The 6-3 victory over the equally hapless Baltimore Orioles kept the Twins within 1 1/2 games of the AL Central title but more importantly, Minnesota's magic number is just two, leaving open the possibility to clinch a playoff berth as soon as Monday, if the Twins beat the Royals and the White Sox lose in Cleveland.

And with the Yankees having clinched and the A's (magic number at 2) virtually there, the AL Playoffs seem virtually sealed with the likely matchups being the Yankees playing the Twins and the A's playing the Tigers.

NL Races

The Mets continue to struggle in September after a torrid five month pace that saw them clinch first among all other MLB teams. That the NL East title they won was historic in that it was the first non-strike season in 14 that the Braves weren't on top, will all be meaningless if they don't pick up the pace. Archie Bunker's Army susses out the September swoon.

The rest of the playoff berths are virtually undecided.

Yes, the Cardinals, whom everyone presumed would win the NL Central are still dangling a fragile 3 1/2 game lead over the Astros with 8 games left but they aren't helping themselves.

The four game sweep the Astros just completed against those very Cardinals has created an air of excitement in Houston and an air of panic in St Louis.

The Astros closed out their home schedule with a 7-3 win before 43,704 fans — the third-largest regular-season crowd in the history of Minute Maid Park to complete the improbable sweep.



Roger Clemens, starting on three days of rest for only the 12th time in his career, held the Cardinals to four hits and one run while striking out six batters over five innings but didn't factor into the decision.

Because of a rainout in Philly this month the Astros were forced to play a night game Sunday and now must fly through the night to reach Philadelphia, where they will play a makeup game today against the red-hot Phillies.

But for this brief flicker of excitement in a waning Astros season, the true race is between the Padres, Dodgers and Phillies for the the last two spots available (presuming of course, the Cardinals don't finish an historic collapse worthy of the 1964 Phillies...)

Leading the Phillies charge Sunday in their 10-7 victory over the Marlins was Chase Utley who has an eight-game hitting streak in which he has gone 16-for-36 (.444). Utley hit a pair of homers,

Meanwhile, the other MVP candidate, Ryan Howard saw his 60-homer watch remain stuck at 58. Howard, who contributed a double and a single against Florida on Sunday, has two homers and 19 walks in his last 14 games, and it's now readily apparent that opponents won't give in to him at crunch time.

Since July 26 the Phillies are 38-20, the second-best record in baseball in that span behind Oakland.

They've got Monday's game against the Astros and then it's on to Washington to play the Nationals, who just lost Nick Johnson for the season with a broken leg. And the Phillies will close it out against the Marlins, who are 5-11 against Philadelphia this year.

The Phillies are Sports Amnesia's pick to win the NL Wildcard and perhaps even the pick to go to the World Series.

And in the NL West the Padres and Dodgers continue to hammer it out.



The San Diego Padres' 38-year-old closer Trevor Hoffman pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning in front of a roaring crowd to become baseball's career saves leader in a memorable 2-1 win for the NL West leaders over the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was his NL-best 43rd save in 48 chances.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers had their own hero in Nomar Garciaparra, whose walk-off grand slam with two outs gave the Dodgers a thrilling 5-1 victory over the Diamondbacks.

Hong-Chih Kuo, the Taiwanese rookie who has stepped up in the pressure of a pennant race and has a 2.59 ERA in four starts after struggling as a reliever with a 5.34 ERA that got him demoted to the Minor Leagues twice, pitched well again adding depth to a potential Dodger postseason rotation but the Dodgers still remain 1 1/2 behind the Padres.