Strike, Too

Dave Paisley

As the prospect of a strike looms larger, the joy of studying the pennant races and figuring what might happen is greatly diminished. Sports radio is awash with the, "Who cares, they’ll go on strike anyway," mentality. And I think we can safely lay the vast majority of the blame at the feet of Bud "Ratman" Selig. However, the players appear to be determined to snatch PR defeat from the jaws of victory, once again, by going on strike before they can be shut out. This may make sense to them from every possible angle, and it’s possible that it is the best thing for them to do to protect their interests. However, they win in every way but one — the hearts and minds of the fans. He who walks out first gets the blame.

Sure, the owners are almost bound to try something stupid in the off-season. After all, why should this off-season be any different? But it might just pay the players in the long run to actually give the owners enough rope to hang themselves with this time. The end result, I believe, would be a complete unraveling of the current power structure in MLB, and a considerable revamp of the Commissioner’s office. Not to mention a new Commissioner. Striking only condemns us to endless more years of Bud.

That said, let’s take a look at where the on-field play is headed.

In the NL East, it seems pretty clear that the Braves are back and they’re bad. If we have playoffs this year I expect them to be scary. Lights out pitching from the entire staff — ERA under 3.00 despite Turner field being moderately hitter friendly — and an average offense with threats of improvement should be an improvement on past years. And not only is the starting pitching stellar as usual, but they’ve got over 200 innings of stellar relief from five guys with a combined ERA under 2.00. And that doesn’t even count John Smoltz, who carries almost the highest ERA on the team of any regular — a shabby 3.95. The Mets, Montreal and Florida may have playoff aspirations, but they will have to be via the wild card, if at all.

The NL Central, as usual of late, is the "doesn’t anyone want to win this division" division. The Cardinals can be safely excused as being a little distracted, but despite all their tragedy, they’re still atop the division by a small margin. The Reds have hung in, the Astros are finally making a move, and the Pirates have sunk back to where they belong. I fully expect this to be a race between the Astros and Cardinals from here on, with the Reds staying on the fringe of the race. None of these teams is going to threaten for the wild card, though.

The NL West is tough. Three quality teams, and two teams that might have thrived better in an easier division makes this the "group of death" to steal a term from the World Cup. In all likelihood, the top two teams will make the playoffs, with the third team likely finishing better than the NL Central winner. With the lead changing hands almost daily, it’s impossible to say which team will get left out. With Johnson and Schilling, though, I’d guess the D’backs will be one of the teams that doers make it.

Over in the AL, the East is proving to be a classic battle between the two arch-rivals. Fortunately, the Red Sox (best pitching, third best offense in the AL) are less fragile this year than in many years past, and are hanging tough with the Yankees (best offense, fifth best pitching). Baltimore, Toronto and Tampa are predictably languishing well out of any playoff contention, although the Orioles do deserve a pat on the back for not sucking as much as predicted. There, how’s that for damning with faint praise?

The Central... Well, I predicted that a team pretty close to .500 would win this division. Except for an incredibly fluky performance so far by the Twins, I’d be almost right. Based on runs scored and allowed the Twins should by rights be closer to 55-46 so far rather than 60-41. That good luck has been offset by their bad luck with injuries, of course. However, the complete, utter and abject surrender by the White Sox and Indians would have handed them the division anyway. A late season collapse like last year’s is unlikely at this point, so the Twins can play out the string and hope that their pitching fully recovers in time for the playoffs.

Finally, out in the West, we have a real horse race. Seattle has been unable to find the gas pedal this year, and remains only a nose ahead of hated division rival Oakland, while the surprising Angels continue to hang in with both the thoroughbreds. With two games separating the teams, it’s tough to pick a winner. Seattle has balance, and if everything clicks, they could pull away fast. Oakland has stellar pitching and could easily ride that to a division win.

Anaheim has, well, they’re much like Seattle. If they can continue to fire on all cylinders, they can stay in the race. I don’t see them being able to pull away from the other two, though. The real tragedy here (if you don’t mind the wild card, that is) is that two of these teams will end up out of the playoffs is Boston and New York keep up their pace. Oh well, just makes it all the more important to win the division.

about the author

Strike, shmike. Dave Paisley is looking for your favorite memory of the 1994 strike. Send them to drdjp@strikethree.com.