Tuesday, September 18, 2007

AL and NL

It would be hard to be more different than the American League and the National League right now. In the AL, the true pennant race drama is over. With Cleveland's win over Detroit tongiht, coupled with a Yankee win, there is no longer any doubt to who the four playoff teams will be. The matchups are anybody's guess.

In the National League, nobody is close to being assured a playoff spot. There are 4 teams fighting for three spots, and 2 teams fighting for one spot. The two teams fighting for one spot are in a virtual tie. The other 4 teams, three have the same number of losses, with the Phillies having 2 more, but also playing much better baseball than the Mets ahead of them.

In the AL the four teams are also within 2 losses of each other, with the Yankees having two more losses than the other teams, but just caught up 3 losses in 3 days. While in the NL the Wild Card is not detracting from the excitment at all, in the AL, well, no '78 Bucky Dent drama possible. No matter if the Yankees catch the Red Sox or not, the Red Sox will be in the playoffs, as will the Yankees.

The other big difference between the leagues, is that every AL playoff team will have won at least 90 games. It is still very possible that no NL playoff team will win 90 games. Crazy. And the AL teams had to do it in a tougher league. The four AL playoff teams would probably all be 100-win teams in the NL.

3 comments:

Ross said...

All you need to know about the difference between the AL & NL, Miguel Cairo was batting 3rd for the Cardinals tonight, and got 3 hits.

Warren said...

Cairo has gotten 3 hits for the Yankees while batting leadoff and 2nd in the order, so I'm not sure that's the best example :)

Now, I will return to my baseball hideaway and in the hopes of the Mets not blowing this lead.

Ross said...

1st and 2nd in batting orders can be situational batters, not the three spot though.