The Mariners suffered a brutal sweep in Detroit while the defending champion Rangers have all but fallen out of the race.
Each week on Camden Chat, we’ve been checking in on the American League postseason contenders. This week the O’s temporarily fell out of and then moved back into a first-place tie with the Yankees, with some help from the worst team in baseball. Let’s look at the latest movement in the AL playoff races.
The Orioles got an unexpected gift when the White Sox — on pace to finish with the worst record in modern baseball history — routed the Yankees in the opener of their three-game set. I’m sure Yankees fans handled that result with total dignity and class and did not in any way suffer a panicky meltdown on social media. (The Orioles have three games remaining with the White Sox in September, and I’m already dreading the fan reaction when the O’s inevitably lose at least one of those.)
The rest of that series played out as expected, with the Yankees slugging their way to two victories, which included Juan Soto homering in four straight at-bats and Aaron Judge becoming the quickest MLB player ever to reach 300 home runs. As long as those two guys remain in the New York lineup, that team is going to be a problem, however flawed the rest of their roster may be.
I’m still including the Red Sox here only because they theoretically have a chance to pull closer to the Orioles if they win the next three games of this weekend series. But they’ve been on a downward trajectory in the past week. They got swept by the Astros, then missed a chance to sweep the Rangers when they failed to turn a game-ending double play and immediately gave up a game-tying, three-run homer, ultimately losing in extras.
The latest team to drop out of contention is the Texas Rangers, who have lost 13 of their last 18 games to fall hopelessly behind in both the Wild Card and AL West races. They will have to console themselves with their 2023 championship rings. There are worse things.
Meanwhile, the Tigers’ playoff hopes are on life support, but they certainly did themselves a favor this week by sweeping the Mariners, starting with a 15-1 blowout followed by two consecutive eighth-inning comebacks. Detroit is almost certainly too far behind to make a real playoff run, but I’d very much appreciate if they keep up their hot streak for the next three days, when they play the Yankees. Cy Young favorite Tarik Skubal is scheduled to start the series finale at Sunday’s Little League Classic in Williamsport.
That Tigers sweep this week, of course, was a gut punch for the Mariners. who have fallen a season-worst three games out of first place in the AL West — remember, at one point in mid-June, they were 10 games ahead — and are now 3.5 out of a wild card spot. They went 1-5 against Detroit in a two-week span. Ouch. Trade deadline acquisition Randy Arozarena has done his part (.857 OPS for the M’s) but the Seattle offense is riddled with underperformers.
The good news for the Mariners is that their next series is an interleague tilt against the Pirates, losers of 10 in a row. The bad news is that they’ll face Paul Skenes in the series opener.
Back to the AL Central, the Twins faced a tough test this week in facing two tough division opponents — the first-place Guardians and third-place Royals — and they more than survived, going 4-3 in those games. They continue to keep a solid grip on the second Wild Card spot. They did, unfortunately, suffer a blow to their offense when the uber-talented but oft-injured Byron Buxton landed on the IL with hip pain, joining the club’s best hitter, Carlos Correa, on the shelf.
AL postseason matchups if the season ended today
#1 Guardians (AL Central winner) — first round bye
#2 ORIOLES (AL East winner) — first round bye
#3 Astros (AL West winner) host #6 Royals (third wild card) in WC Series
#4 Yankees (first wild card) host #5 Twins (second wild card) in WC Series
No change from a week ago, as the Orioles still hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Yankees for the AL East lead, but are a half game worse than the Guardians for the best record in the American League. To think that the O’s and Yankees could finish with identical records over a 162-game season, and one gets a free pass into the Division Series while the other faces an unforgiving best-of-three battle in the first round.
It’s safe to say there will be a lot riding on that three-game series between the Orioles and Yankees in the Bronx during the final week of the season. One victory in that series would clinch the tiebreaker for the Birds, but surely they’d prefer to win the division outright. So would we.