An Old Fashion Pennant Race

We are two weeks into the college football season and the NFL has just completed its first week. If you are not in contention in your fantasy baseball league or your favorite team does not have playoff prospects you are probably not following baseball all that closely at the moment. But there are some interesting races coming down the stretch. There is even an old fashion pennant race!

In the American League, it’s all about the Texas Rangers. They are hanging tough in the AL West hovering 4.5 games behind the Anaheim Angels for the division lead and 4.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the Wild Card. With only 19 games left to go they are running out of time BUT they have 7 games left against the Angels (yes – 7 out of their 19 games left are against one team – who made that schedule?) and that makes this one not over by a long shot. It should be an interesting final three weeks.

In the NL East the Philadelphia Phillies lead the Florida Marlins by 5.5 and the Atlanta Braves by 6. The Braves have 3 games left with the Phillies and the Marlins have 5 games left with Phillies. Since the NY Mets are not the team in the lead a collapse is not likely, but stranger things have happened and it’s too early to give up faith if you are a Marlins or Braves fan. Your odds aren’t good but you do have a fighting chance to close the gap directly when you play the Phillies. Also, it’s not likely but there is an outside shot that the Marlins or Braves can still grab the Wild Card spot as they are the same number of games out from that as they are from the Division lead (but they have more teams to climb over).

On to the NL West where some real baseball like it ought to be is being played. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies are tripping over themselves all tied up and the San Francisco Giants are only 3.5 game behind. It hasn’t gotten a lot of press nationally (it’s gotten some here) but if the Rockies win the division it will be the greatest comeback in MLB history (in terms of the number of games) as they would have come from more than 15 games back to catch the Dodgers. The Rockies and Giants have 2 more games left with each other (tonight and tomorrow night) and then they each play 3 games against the Dodgers.

The Giants have some momentum after Tim Lincecum (in line for back to back Cy Young Award's) pitched another gem last night over the Rockies striking out 11 in the Giants 9-1 win. This one is not over by a long shot and is clearly the most interesting race in baseball. Assuming no one backs in here, the runner-up in the division has a real shot at being the Wild Card representative so it’s not all or nothing for any of them. - Paul Leume

Paul Leume is a MLB columnist from Montreal, Canada. Paul, a one-time beat writer covering the Montreal Expos for the Montreal Gazette is a proud grandfather of 3 girls and now spends his time offering his thoughts and prospective on Major League Baseball on a variety of blogs and websites throughout Al Gore’s internet.

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