NL Wild Card race: Wednesday
Well, looks like Atlanta joined the party.
The Braves have won three straight and 8 of 10 and are now 3 back in the wild card race and four back in the division. The bad news is there are still three teams ahead for the wild spot and two ahead of them for the division. The good news is the Phillies, who the Braves beat last night 10-6, are one of the teams ahead in both races and the ATL has Hudson and Smolts going against the Phils for the next two nights before finishing the season with a Houston team playing out the string and Andruw Jones is suddenly hot, going 5-for-10 in his last two games.
| 2007 National League Wild Card Standings |
If the Braves managed to worm their way into the race it would be a great story, but not as great as…
The Rockies, who just keep on winning. Last night’s 9-7 win over the Dodgers made it nine straight, which ties for the longest winning streak in team history, and brings them even with the Phillies in the wild card standings and has all of Denver, or at least the Denver Post, dreaming of the Rox first playoff appearance since 1995. Rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki was at it again, clubbing his 23rd home run of the season, the second most ever by a rookie shortstop, trailing only Nomah who hit 30 in 1997. Nomar gives Tulo his props here.
Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice…
Just when it looks like every last wheel is flying of the Padre bus, Brain Giles, mired in a 7-for-67 slump, comes through with a three-run home run with two outs in the ninth as San Diego comes back to beat the Giants, 6-4. Just when it looked the Padres were about to snap like Milton Bradley at an umpires convention, the Friars are all alone atop the wild card standings…and just when it looked like the Cubs were going to walk away with the division, they went all Cub on us and after last night the Brewers are back to within two games….same thing in the NL West where Arizona lost last night to the (gulp) Pirates losing ground on both the Padres (two back) and the Rox (three back). The division could be at stake when Arizona and Colorado meet in the last week of the season.
Here are today’s pitching matchups as listed by espn.com (hey, they have a much bigger staff, so we like to let the network do our dirty work).
So, what do I think is going to happen?
No clue. That’s why this stuff is so much fun. It reminds me of March Madness where you have several do-or-die games going on at once and suddenly you care about teams that frankly, you never cared about.
