Chris Ray continues to be a fitting replacement for B.J. Ryan. He recorded a five out save today, giving him an even dozen in twelve opportunities. He struck out two more to run his total to 22 in 19 1/3 innings, and 65 in 60 innings for his career. He did not allow a hit today and only 10 all season. The Orioles just need to present him with more chances to close games out.

Aaron Heilman tosses a complete game one-hitter for the Mets. He walked three and hit a batter, but got two double plays to only face three over the minimum. The Mets still don't have a no-hitter; Luis Castillo had the only hit, a single in the fourth. Heilman has had an unremarkable career. Now he's part of Mets history. The Mets win 4-0.

Omar Vizquel is enjoying Cleveland's surge:

"I'm having the time of my life," said Omar Vizquel, the last remaining piece of the World Series teams of 1995 and 1997. "I can't ask for anything better than the year we are having."

Is Vizquel surprised? "Yes," he said. "We have a lot of young guys who have made improvements in a quick way."

Vizquel, 37, said the raucous atmosphere brought back memories. "It was kind of like deja vu out there," he said. "It was obviously nice to see so many people behind us."

Vizquel had four of the 13 hits off four Twins pitchers Carlos Silva (10-8, 4.52 ERA), Matt Guerrier, Joe Roa and Jesse Crain.

There were 30,000 at Jacobs Field last night, about 9,000 more than usual for the Indians this year. I was told once by an independent league GM that a fan in a seat was worth $20 to him; I assume for a major league team like Cleveland it's somewhat more. Let's say $50. If they can do 30,000 a game for the rest of the season (22 more games), that's an extra $10 million in their pockets for next year (and I believe I'm being conservative here). That's a good chunk of money to use to improve your team.

Oliver Perez showed again today why he's leading the NL in K's per 9. He struck out 11 in seven innings vs. the Brewers, while walking only one. He's cut his walks down from last year, and it shows in his 3.22 ERA. Looks like the Pirates have themselves the making of a future star here.

Kyle Lohse is having an interesting game. He's striking out batters (five in four innings), but he's also giving up hits (six in four innings). That combination is causing him to throw a lot of pitches, 88 so far. The Twins will have to go to the pen early today.

Everything went right today for the north side fans. Ron Villone had another poor outing vs. the Brewers, giving up five runs in 5 2/3 innings. (I mistakenly reported earlier that Scott Podsednik had a double and a HR; he actually had a triple instead of a HR, and ended the day with 2 doubles and a triple).

Meanwhile, Mark Prior helped his Cy Young credentials with a 10 K, 6 2/3 inning win in the opener against the Pirates. Matt Clement pitched even better in the night cap, allowing 1 earned run over 7 2/3 innings. He threw 68 of 101 pitches for strikes. And Sammy Sosa added his 40th HR, th 7th forty HR season of his career.

Congratulations to the Cubs! The playoffs are now set, with the Marlins opening in San Francisco and the Cubs heading to Atlanta.

Jeff Kuhn writes:

The reader that e-mailed you was exactly right. There were some unenlightened fools in the back saying "Yankees Suck", but whenever that gained steam, it was drowned out by "We Want Oakland". Also, some people have written about the excessive celebration that happend. For your benefit (I know you weren't one of them), I just wanted to bring up 2 points.

1. The Red Sox are the only team that is in the AL playoffs this year, that wasn't last year.
2. They didn't celebrate by themselves, they were on the field from 10:14 when the last pitch was thrown until 11:15, when the police started to usher fans out. Players went into the clubhouse, but almost always came back on the field. I honestly think the celebration was for the fans, who are among the most intense in baseball.

This Red Sox team has a very different feel to it. You get the feeling that this team really likes each other, and really like the fans, and the fans return the love. Jeff has his own blog on the Red Sox, The House that Dewey Built. He writes more about last night here.

The Dodgers go out with a whimper. A 6-1 loss to the Padres in Sand Diego sealed their fate. With all that great pitching, they just couldn't generate enough offense to win some game. Shawn Green and Fred McGriff should have been enough to propel them to the playoffs, but poor or injury filled years by both left Los Angeles short of that goal. It will be interesting to see how the Dodgers address this next year. One logical move would be to replace Cesar Izturis with Miguel Tejada. While Izzy is a tremendous defensive player, he's an offensive black hole. Although Cesar puts up a couple of more defensive winshares than Tejada, over all Tejada had 16 more total win shares. That's five games in the standings.

My hesitation would be age. Izzy is only 23, four years younger than Tejada. Ozzie Smith and Omar Vizquel were poor offensive players when they were young, but each developed a good batting eye which led to good on-base percentages. And Izzy is going to be cheaper for the next few years. It's going to be an interesting call for the Dodgers.

Update: There lots of good stuff on the Dodgers over at Dodger Thoughts. Just start at the top and keep scrolling.

The Marlins complete a sweep of the Phillies with an 8-4 victory, knocking them out of the NL Wild Card race. The Marlins clinch a tie, with the Cubs, Astros and Dodgers still in contention. The Astros are winning 6-1 in the top of the ninth, and the Dodgers are behind 1-0 in the 2nd. If both those teams lose, the Marlins clinch outright.

Update: Astros win, tying the Cubs for the Central lead, and staying in contention for the wild card.

Despite outhomering the Reds 4-1 (including two by Sosa), the Cubs lose 9-7. The Astros are ahead of the Brewers 4-1 in the 8th, so it looks like the Central is going to stay interesting though Saturday at least.

The Marlins magic number is now two against three teams; the Phillies, the Astros and the Dodgers all have the same number of losses. So a win tonight by the Marlins eliminates the Phillies, but they also need losses by the Astros and Dodgers to clinch. 28,520 in Miami last night. Maybe they'll sell out this evening's game to see if the team can clinch a tie.

It was clinch night in the AL as the Yankees, Twins and A's all posted victories, and in the case of the Twins and A's, had their persuers lose. It wasn't easy for the A's. Ryan Drese pitched a high quality start against them. Only last minute heroics in the 9th and 10th by Dye and Melhuse gave them the win. And Durazo stole a base in the 10th! He had only made one attempt this year, and he was caught. I don't know who called for the steal, and I don't see much in the news stories about it. I'll keep my eyes open.

I think this should lay to rest two notions (or maybe it's two different ways of looking at the same notion). One is that you have to be rich to win. The other is that the A's are a fluke. This article on SI.com has a list of team salaries.
The Yankees are #1 in the majors and the AL. The Twins are 8th in the AL. The A's are 12th. They've figured it out. They've figured that everyone else is way overpaying for their wins. I really want to hear Bud Selig say the A's are a fluke now. He should be holding them up to the other clubs as example of how to save themselves millions of dollars.

The other thing I like about the way the post-season is shaping up is the diversity of stories. You have the Yankees, who stride across the baseball world, confident, imposing, daring others to knock them off, never doubting that they can win any game at any time. You have the Braves, the team that despite it's greatness for 12 consecutive years only has 1 World Series title. You have the cursed teams potential in the Cubs and the Red Sox. You have the never won the series potential in the Astros and Mariners. You have the little teams that could in the Marlins and Twins. You have Alou and Bonds, trying to cement their greatness with a sereis win. And finally, you have the Oakland A's and the press just waiting to show that Beane isn't the genius that he professes to be. It's going to be a great October.

The Tigers end their 10 game losing streak and knock the Royals out of the pennant race. The Twins, for the 2nd year in a row, are AL Central champions. Congrats to the Twinkies for showing that small market teams winning are not a fluke.

I was away for the weekend, and my only baseball information game from game scores I could pick up on my cell phone browser. In the AL, the division leaders each cemented their leads. The Yankees won all three of their games, and one more win gives them the division. Three gives them home field throughout the playoffs. For all the flaws this team has, they still have the best record in baseball, and will probably win 100 games.

The Twins swept Detroit, and with KC taking two out of three from the White Sox, the Twins magic number stands at two. The Twins have won nine in a row, and are playing their best ball of the season going into the playoffs. And congratulations to the Royals for reaching 81 victories and guaranteeing them at least a .500 mark this year. That voids the out clause in Mike Sweeney's contract.

The A's only had to win one game against the Mariners, and they did that yesterday. It reduces their magic number to three, so one win against Texas and one win against the Mariners next weekend, and the west belongs to them. With the two losses to the Mariners, however, the A's are unlikely to beat the Yankees for home field.

The Red Sox and Mariners maintained their 2 1/2 game separation. The Red Sox need to win five games, and they are playing the Orioles and Devil Rays the rest of the week. The Sox only have a 7-8 record against the Orioles, so that might be an interesting four game series. The odds are, however, that Boston wins the wild card. If they should fall to the Mariners, it will be just another arrow in the curse quiver.

In the NL, the Central and wild card were the only undecided races going into the weekend, and they are still undecided. The Astros hold a 1/2 lead over the Cubs. Neither team had a great weekend. The Cubs only managed a split of four games with the Pirates, while the St. Louis Cardinals, trying to stay in the race, took two out of three from the Astros. The Cubs have the easier schedule down the stretch, playing the Reds and the Pirates, while the Astros host the Giants and Milwaukee.

The Phillies have the day off while Florida finishes it's series with Atlanta, then tomorrow starts the big wild card series as the Phillies travel to Miami to meet the Marlins. I hope Flordia gets big crowds for those games. Dontrelle Willis goes against Kevin Millwood tomorrow night. That should really bring the fans out. One advantage Flordia has is that they finish against the Mets, while the Phillies play the Braves.

And of course, lurking in the shadows are the Cubs and Dodgers. They'll want some kind of split of the three games so they can gain ground. The Cubs best chance is still the division, so they'll be concentrating on that, but the Dodgers, by losing four of their last six, have blown a golden opportunity to gain ground. They finish with 4 games with the Padres and 4 with the Giants.

Should be a fun last week of the season.

One run made all the difference today. Seattle's offense was shut down again, as five Texas pitchers held the Mariners to 1 run. The Seattle staff was equally effective, also allowing 1 run through nine innings, but in the 10th, sparked by A-Rod's leadoff double, the Rangers had four straight batters reach against Hasegawa to give them the win.

In Boston, an error by Todd Walker led to a run and a threat by the Devil Rays in the 9th. Kim was able to hold them off for a 4-3 win. Wakefield allowed three runs, only 1 earned, as an earlier error by Garciaparra also led to a run. Boston's magic number for the wild card is down to eight. Cleveland, Baltimore and Tampa Bay and are the final opponents for the Red Sox, while the Mariners have six against Oakland. Things are looking up for the Sox.

After last night's win, the Twins have pretty much wrapped up the AL Central. I'm sorry to disappoint my readers who are White Sox fans, but the odds are in the Twins favor right now. The Twins magic number is 9 to win the division outright, and they have ten games to play. Of those 10 games, seven are against the Detroit Tigers. Two are against the Indians, and one is against the White Sox tonight. The Twins should be able to take six against the Tigers. In the upcoming three game series, they are sending Milton, Santana and Radke to the mound. The Tigers may get to 120 losses just against the Twins.

So six games against the Tigers takes the Twins magic number to three. I guess they split with Cleveland, which takes it to two. Meanwhile, the White Sox have seven games against the Royals, and three against the Yankees. The Yankees are still fighting for home field, so they won't go easy on the Sox. The Royals would love to finish strong and end up in 2nd place. It's had for me to believe that White Sox would lose less than two games to these teams.

The Twins schedule is easy, the White Sox have it tough. Chicago needed to bury the Twins and they didn't do it. Sure, anything can happen, but it's not very likely.

Update: Aaron Gleeman agrees with me, but I at least gave the White Sox an extra day. The Twins Geek, however is more restrained:

It ain't over yet folks. Even if the Twins win tonight (and they'll need to beat a pitcher of the month candidate to do so), they'll need to keep winning the last week. And before we thing that's a slam dunk, remember the last time this team faced a slam dunk. Back in June, the scheduled looked easy, the lead was large, and the postseason looked assured. And then....

And nice to see 40,000 fans at the game last night.

The KC Royals are going to at least keep pace today as they defeat the Detroit Tigers 7-2. Jimmy Gobble and Angel Berroa had big days; Gobble struck out 7 and allowed 2 runs through 7, and Berroa was 3 for 5 with 3 RBI and 2 runs scored. That's win 76 for the Royals; five more and Mike Sweeney's contract kicks in.

The biggest gain today was by the Yankees, who swept a double header against the Devil Rays, while Boston lost to the White Sox. That takes the Yankees magic number down to 9. They could clinch by next weekend. The AL Central stays the same for the 2nd day in a row, as the White Sox, Twins and Royals all win.

In the NL, the Marlins defeated the Braves for the 2nd day in a row while the Phillies were losing to the Pirates for the 2nd day in a row. Florida now leads Philadelphia by 2 1/2 games, and are 8 1/2 behind the Braves. I'd love to see the NL East race get a bit closer.

A great pitching duel in Houston, as Morris and Oswalt each gave up four hits over seven innings. Morris walked one and gave up a solo shot to Bagwell, and the Cardinals lost 2-0. The Cardinals are in third place 4 1/2 back, and are in danger of falling out of the race.

The West races are underway at this hour, except for the A's having defeated Texas 9-3 to at least maintain their lead over Seattle. The Mariners and Angels are tied at 0 in the fourth, and the Mariners need a win to gain on the Red Sox.

The Eddie Kranepool Society is keeping tabs on the "We've fallen and we can't get up," pennant race. :-)

The Mariners Weblog has a link to the MLB tie-breaker rules.

The Philadelphia Phillies lost to the Braves 4-2 to drop 1 game behind the Marlins in the wild card race. Horacio Ramirez pitched a fine game, striking out seven and walking none over seven innings. He did allow two HR, but both were solo shots.

Christian Ruzich pens an article at Baseball Prospectus on the tie-breaking playoff possibilities. One thing I didn't realize is that a three-way tie between division winners and a wild card team now results in a two game playoff instead of one.

Christian does not cover the possibility of a four way tie between NY, Seattle, Oakland and Boston. In that case, there would be a division playoff on day 1, and the losers would play a wild card playoff on day 2.

Correction: I had a wrong statement in the original post about the 1995 playoff. I've removed the incorrect statement.

The Baseball Crank has an excellent post on the 75th anniversary of a big series between the A's and Yankees during the 1928 AL season.

The Royal defeat Texas. With the Twins winning and the White Sox losing, all three contenders have 66 losses. The Royals have two fewer wins to put them 1 game back. They also only need 10 more victories to reach the magic .500 mark, vesting Sweeney's contract. And Bill James said they'd only win 66.

The Dodgers have slowly but surely moved back into contention in the NL Wild Card race. They are now 3rd, 1 1/2 game back of the Marlins and Phillies. Fred McGriff had a big night last night with 2 HR; I'm sure the Dodgers would love to see him go on a tear that netted him the nine he needs for 500. The Dodger pitching was typically fine top to bottom; they used five pitchers, and Gagne finished the game with a four out save, setting a new record with 55 consecutive saves (the All-Star game doesn't count). If McGriff and Shawn Green (who got on base like Shawn Green in August) can put on a offensive push in September, LA could easily sprint to the front. It's not going to take much of an offensive improvement to make this a much better team.

The Marlins came back against the Expos today to sweep the series and take sole possesion of first place in the NL wild card race. It's been quite a week for the Expos, sweeping the Phillies to tie for the wild card, then being swept by the Marlins to fall four back again.

Jeff Conine had a nice return, going 1 for 3 with an RBI and turning a DP on a fantastic catch in left field.

The Expos win, the Phillies and Marlins lose. The Expos are now 1 game out of the wild card. The Cardinals win, also pulling within 1 of the Marlins and Phllies. That big tie comes closer to reality every day.

A big night for the Expos, Cubs and Astros. They won, and the other five teams competing for the two remaining NL playoff spots all lost. This gives the Astros a 1/2 game lead in the NL Central, and puts the other 7 teams within 2 1/2 games of each other for the wild card. I'm hoping for an eight-way tie.

Quite a day. The Red Sox beat the Mariners this afternoon, and the A's hang on to beat the Blue Jays 8-6. There is now a three way tie for first place/wild card between the two AL West teams and the Red Sox. This is actually very good for the Red Sox. If the season were to end today, the Sox would be the wild card, and the Mariners and A's would play a one game winner take all for the other playoff spot (this happened in 1995 with the Mariners and Angels). The biggest beneficiary of this is the Yankees, who now have a big lead for home field advantage in the playoffs.

The Phillies lost, and so far every team that was trailing them for the wild card, with the exception of Arizona has won. No matter what the outcome of the Mets-Dodgers game, there will be 7 teams within 4 games of the Phillies for the wild card come tomorrow morning.

Aaron Gleeman finally generates some buzz about the AL Central. :-) I love this part:

Sure, if these three teams were racing for 100 wins instead of 85 wins, it would probably be a lot more exciting. On the other hand, if they were better teams, this would stop being a true pennant-race, because the teams that lost out on the division title would still have a chance at the Wild Card.

For good or for bad, there will be no Wild Card winner from this division. If one of these teams wants to make the playoffs, they are going to have to beat the other two. Personally, I love that, although it would be nice if it didn't have to be a division with lousy, non Wild Card-contending teams for a true pennant-race to take place.

That's the thing I really don't like about the wild card. It's a lot harder to get pennant races between great teams.

The Cubs were playing Houston. Atlanta was playing San Francisco. The Phillies and Marlins were playing weaker teams. So what happened? The Eastern contenders got swept. No change there. The Giants were able to pick up a game on the DBacks and Dodgers. The Astros increased their lead to 1 game from 1/2 a game. The real action was in the wild card. There are now seven teams within four games of capturing the wild card. So who has the advantage down the stretch? The Central teams have the easiset schedule:

Team	Remaining Opponents Avg. WPct
Marlins	.529
Phillies	.520
Expos	.515
Dodgers	.502
Diamondbacks	.502
Cardinals	.487
Cubs	.469

There has been the possibility of a massive wild card tie in the past. With so many teams in it, and with the schedule strength almost the inverse of the current standings, we could see three, four or five teams tied at the end of the season. Won't that be fun to sort out!

Update: The Giants also moved within four of the Braves for home field advantage in the NL playoffs. My opinion has been for a while that the Braves have been playing a bit over their heads, and I expect them to come back to the pack a bit before the season is over. The Giants now have a chance to catch them for the home field in the NLCS.