TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Insert Foot in Mouth, Chew

I've got a fearless prediction to make in the NL wildcard race: the Marlins, despite being four back. Two weeks from now I'll either be seen as eerily prescient or forgotten, which is why it always pays to make off the wall predictions.

Here's why: unique among the wildcard contenders, the Phish and Cubs are playing no other wildcard contender down the stretch. And while that makes it the Cubs to lose, I now have the feeling they will, somehow.

The Giants and Astros have three against one another, then the Giants have six against the Dodgers (who may yet be playing for the wildcard instead of the division crown) and three against the Padres, who have six against the DBacks, and three against the Dodgers. LA gets four against the Rockies, in LA, on top of all that. Houston has the SF series, three against the Brewers, three against St. Louis (no doubt a little toned down while prepping for the playoffs, but still formidable) then finishes off three with Colorado thanks to the bizarre unbalanced NL Central.

The teams all have weaknesses, of course, or they would've run away with it by now. The Dodgers have a rotation of No. 3 guys that still isn't set, and their offense has been asleep at the switch for two weeks. The Giants don't have a rotation after Schmidt, Brett Tomko notwithstanding. The Padres have lost both Sean Burroughs and Khalil Greene and never have found a centerfielder. Roy Oswalt of the Astros has a pulled rib cage muscle, leaving only Clemens as a real anchor in the rotation, although the Astro offense has been spectacular this month.

Oh, the Cubs still have the easiest schedule on paper: three with Pittsburgh, three with the Mets, four with Cincinnati, and three with Atlanta. But they're the Cubs. It's not just karma working against them. They've been playing flat for weeks -- weak defense, overly-aggressive hitting and running, mediocre relief, spotty starts from Prior and Wood and Clement.

What does a mixture of strengths and weaknesses suggest? Lots of great baseball in the next two weeks, and lots of split results among teams with head to head matchups. Since Florida doesn't have any, that means when they lose, it won't benefit their adversaries individually or in the aggregate more than a half game.

Florida has six against Philly, whom they've completely owned the last two years, three against the Expos, and three against Atlanta, which is having major problems with its rotation right now. Pavano and Willis have been faltering, Burnett is hurt, and Beckett, while great of late, has been inconsistent and prone to minor injuries taking him out of the game. Oh, and the offense has been sputtering. So it's not exactly a shoo-in.

Finally, a word on Philly. The team is not in great shape, but because of the other teams playing one another, if they sweep both Marlins series and take half the other games they can sneak in there, as long as the other teams above split head to head. It's a longshot, but not as long a shot as being seven back with fourteen to play might seem.

PS OK, I know in my heart of hearts the Phish are probably going nowhere but to Hialea on Oct. 4th, but the wildcard race is really down to a series of coin flips, for why not pick the all-tails team?

posted by The Crank 2:47 PM