MLB post season in preview: Part 2

As the regular season winds down to its end on Sunday, most MLB divisions are all but final, the only exception being the American League West.

As of now, the Texas Rangers have a 2.5 game lead on Houston with Anaheim (er, “Los Angeles…” etc.) just two back. The Astros have five games left to catch Texas, while the Angels have six to play. The Rangers should be able to stand their ground when they play the Angels to close out the year, holding on to win the division and leaving Houston with the second American League wild card spot. The Angels will run out of real estate, as far as season length goes, and a banged-up pitching staff ultimately leaves them on the outside looking in.

If this rings true, the division titles for the rest of the AL should go to the Kansas City Royals in the Central and the Toronto Blue Jays in the East, with the two wild cards going to the New York Yankees and aforementioned Astros.

In the National League, the Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets should take the West, Central and East divisions, respectively, with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs already having punched their tickets to the NL wild card game.

Speaking of the Wild Card playoff, there have been more grumblings this year than in seasons past – primarily due to the heavy traffic atop the NL Central. St. Louis has the best record in baseball; however, the next two best teams (Pittsburgh and Chicago) just so happen to play in the same division.

The way the Wild Card game is now formulated is: the two best teams in each league that did not win their division play a single, winner-take-all game hosted by the team with the better record. The winner moves on to face the team with the league’s best record in the Division Series round of the playoffs and the loser takes a four-month vacation.

What has sparked ire with this setup is the realization that one of the top three teams in baseball this year will be sitting at home following the very first round of the post-season. Unfortunately, it’s just the nature of the game. This isn’t Little League, where every team gets a trophy for participating. If you win the big games, you move on. If not, tip your cap and gracefully exit stage right, because there’s no one else to blame. Now, on to the Wild Card games, and stay tuned for Part 3 of this series in the Advocate.

The American League one game playoff in the Bronx should pit Masahiro Tanaka of New York against Houston’s Dallas Keuchel in a classic duel of youth vs. experience. The talent level of the Astros’ lineup and too much Keuchel will keep the Yankees home permanently. The Astros will head to the ALDS and take on the Royals in Kansas City (Houston edged New York, 4 games to 3 in their regular season series).

Meantime, Chicago travels to the Steel City in a showdown of NL Central foes battling to move on. The Cubs’ Jake Arrieta squares off with counterpart Gerrit Cole of the Pirates in an epic pitching matchup. If there’s ever to be a low-scoring affair with a legitimate shot at extra innings, this is it. When the dust settles, Pittsburgh’s fight and the Cubs’ fragile bullpen will undo the high hopes in Chicago, and the Bucs should move on to St. Louis to face the Cardinals in the NLDS (Chicago beat Pittsburgh 11 out of 19 games in regulation).