Remaining games, season match-ups and their totally irrelevant predictive value
Tampa Bay: 6 games each. Oak and Sea are both 2-1 so far, push.
Baltimore: 6 games each. Oak is 3-0, Sea is 1-2. +4 Oak
Texas: 7 games Sea, 6 games Oak. Sea is 7-6, Oak is 9-4. 4 wins for Seattle, 4 wins for Oakland
Anahiem: 6 games Sea, 7 games Oak. Sea is 8-5, Oak is 7-6. 4 wins for Seattle, 4 wins for Oakland
Head-to-head: 6 games. Sea leads the series 7-6. Call it one game to Seattle.
Total = Oakland wins division by 3 games.
Bright side: Oakland’s down Mulder for the season. Still, Hudson-Zito have had good years.. but the rest of their rotation’s been crap. Harden’s got potential, sure, but… plus, their offense still is bad, like 20th in the league or so.
Shady side: Mariners are playing like crap, crap, crap, and there’s no reason to believe that Gillick’s going to be able to swing any kind of deal to upgrade one or more of their gaping holes.
Here’s the other problem: the A’s, if they’re smart, might toss a chum starter (Halama, for instance) against Texas/Anaheim so they can run Hudson-Zito out against the Mariners: They’ve got 3 games at home in Oakland, and then 3 in Texas, and three here in Seattle to end the season. Throwing a chum starter against those guys, they’re taking their chances that they’ll still be able to beat a scrub pitcher (or that they’ll lose and the M’s will lose too), and that throwing one of their big men against the Mariners is a game in the division race. Right now, after Mulder’s injury, the rotation went Hudson-Lilly-Harden-Zito-Chum, which as I project it out runs to
Seattle 5 Chum
Seattle 1 Hudson
Seattle 2 Lilly
Texas 3 Harden
Texas 4 Zito
Texas 5 Chum
(off-day)
Seattle 1 Hudson
Seattle 2 Lilly
Seattle 3 Harden
But tweak it a little — move the rotation after Hudson up a spot after the off-day, you get Hudson-Harden-Zito in the last series. More tweaking, it’s possible to get at least Hudson-Zito in both series.
And if I can think of it, I have to believe it’s occurred to the A’s.
A big welcome to those of you finding us for the first time today, thanks to this article in today’s Tacoma News Tribune. Thanks for checking us out, and we hope you’ll stick around for awhile.
I wanted to point out that for a player to be eligible for the post-season roster, they have to be on the M’s roster by August 31st, before the September call-ups. So if the team’s shopping for a Matt Stairs or whatever, they need to get one and right quick. The other option, of course, is cheating, ala Francisco Rodriguez — if MLB’s not going to enforce roster rules, maybe the team can pick up some pieces in mid-September and use them in the playoffs.
How long of a leash does Gil Meche have? At some point, don’t the M’s have to say that something isn’t right and we’re going to try something else. Running him out there against teams who can hit simply isn’t working. Pat Gillick prides himself on not reacting to events and not letting your emotions force you into a bad choice. At some point, though, you just have to hit the panic button. This team stinks right now.