Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 02, 2006
Wild Race Continues

The NL Division races are looking more and more complete as the Cardinals and the Dodgers keep on winning. Chris Carpenter easily beat the Pirates 3-1 last night for his third complete game, allowing three hits while striking out eight. That keeps the St. Louis lead at 8. The Dodgers extended their lead to 4 with a 6-3 win over Colorado, currently number 9 in the wild card race and fading fast. Wilson Betemit keeps supplying power, picking up a double and homer. He's slugging .554 since his arrival in Los Angeles.

But the wild card keeps getting better. The Cincinnati Reds needed a win last night and Bronson Arroyo kept the ball in the park as they defeated San Diego 6-2. Rich Aurilia collected four hits, including his 20th home run of the season. The win also moved Philadelphia, Atlanta and Arizona 1/2 game up, since all were rained out. The Reds and Phillies are both 1/2 game behind the Padres, although the Phillies are even with San Diego in the All Freaking Import Loss Column (AFILC) while the Reds are even in the totally meaningless win column.

The other big beneficiary of the Cincinnati win was the Florida Marlins. Anibal Sanchez out-dueled Chris Capuano for a 3-2 Marlins victory. Both pitchers went seven innings, allowed five hits, struck out seven, but the Brewers could only push across one run in that time while the Marlins picked up three. Capuano made a mistake to Cody Ross which resulted in a two run homer that broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh. Florida vaults from sixth to fourth in the race again, two games back.

So as things stand this morning, six teams are 2 1/2 back or less in the wild card race, and eight teams are four games out or better. I'm still hoping for a massive tie at the end of the season.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:33 AM | Division Races | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Will one of the guys who figures the odds at Baseball Prospectus or Cool Standings please add an item that shows the possibility of a massive tie in the NL Wild Card. Thank you.

Posted by: Tor at September 2, 2006 10:52 PM
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