It is the end of August. The weather is on the verge of changing. Fall is just around the corner and most people are excited about it. Whether they are excited about the start of the football season, the cooler weather, or pumpkin spiced EVERYTHING, I think this is the time of year people are just flat out done with summer. Done being hot and humid. Done with using the air conditioner. Just done. I'm not the biggest fan of summer. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy summer. I enjoy wearing shorts and the long days. I don't enjoy the humidity. I'm not the biggest fan of high temperatures. One great thing about summer is that there is one major sport going on...baseball.
This is the time of year that most everyone forgets about baseball. It's a long season. It started back in April (for some of us, it started during the Winter Meetings). By this time of year, the playoff teams are mostly in position. It's just a matter of where they are going to be sitting at the end of the season. A lot of games don't really matter other than pride amongst the teams that are close to, if they haven't already, been eliminated. No one really cares if the Twins beat the Astros this time of year (or at any point of the year maybe?), but all eyes are on the Angels/Athletics series. And why? Because there are three games separating them in the standings. The Angels have won the first two games so before the wins, there was just one game between them. Both of these teams, barring a complete and absolute meltdown, are going to make the playoffs. It's just a matter of which one will win the division and which one will be a wild card team. And that's the fun of this time of year.
Another tight race is in the AL Central with the Tigers and Royals. For the most part, the Tigers have had the division lead this year. However, there have been times when they have struggled and the Royals have surged. They happened to take place at the same time and currently the Royals are in first place in the division while the Tigers are going back and forth with Seattle for the second wild card spot. For the first time in several years, the Tigers and their fans have something to worry about this late in the season. As a fan of the sport, this is great. A close divisional race (before the start of today's games, the Royals are up by half a game) makes it fun to scoreboard watch. As a fan of one of the teams involved in this race, it is ulcer inducing. I knew, as most people did, that the Royals were the only team ready to wrestle with the Tigers for the division. And they are proving that they can hang with the Tigers. There are six games left between the two teams, and while games in April and May are important, these six games are even more so. If you ask players from both teams, they will say that they are just going to be focused on the opponent of the day, but you know deep down that they are all looking at these upcoming series.
And these tight races are what it's all about. Do I want the Tigers to triumph and win the division again? Of course I do. But if they don't win it, they don't win it. And you have to tip your cap to the Royals. It seems that they have finally turned their 'this is the year they will challenge the Tigers' chip in and are ready to make it interesting. The nice thing is that this is what the division has been missing for the past couple of years. While Minnesota and Chicago have been rebuilding and Kansas City and Cleveland have had up and down years, it has been kind of a boring division race to watch. Again, I love seeing the Tigers win and I love seeing them in the playoffs, but with an actual fight on their hands, they can't coast into the playoffs. And that is where they seem to have faltered. Build up a large lead and coast into the playoffs. You can't turn it on like a light switch. Winning builds momentum. It makes you play confidently. You're in the middle of an eight game winning streak and although you are down 5-1 in the 5th inning, you know you're playing well enough to come back and take away the win from that opponent. It is that confidence that the Tigers have been missing in the playoffs. It is that confidence that, if they can win this division, will carry into the playoffs.
51/120
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