As the season continues the winners keep winning and the losers keep losing. There has been little movement within the divisions, particularly at the bottom. Only two divisions have really had much back and forth lately with the top spot.
The AL East has by far been the most interesting. In the closest race of the season the Toronto Blue Jays, Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles are only separated by 2 games. The AL East has long been touted as always competitive and the division that the Wild Card team comes from; right now this looks like the case.
The only other division that has a race for first going on is the NL West. The most expensive team in professional sports, the Los Angeles Dodgers has finally overtaken the San Francisco Giants. Even with their large payroll, the Dodgers have dropped the ball in the playoffs. It will be interesting to see if this year is much of the same, or if the investment team led by Magic Johnson will finally get a return.
That said, my picks of the week are polar opposites. Depending on the type of games you like to watch; I picked a competitive match up and what I would affectionately call a dumpster fire for this week in baseball.
Hands down, the best series this weekend is the Blue Jays vs the Cleveland Indians. Both teams currently lead their divisions and are pushing hard to stay there. Terry Francona’s Indians have been shocking critics since the end of May when they took over first place in the AL Central for the first time since 2014. The Blue Jays had a similar path up until last year when they won the AL East, but then lost to the Kansas City Royals in the ALCS.
The best match up of the series is Saturdays game; Aaron Sanchez (12-2) vs Josh Tomlin (11-6). Of the two, Sanchez has the upper hand with an ERA under 3, but no active Blue Jay is hitting over .300. In comparison, Tomlin has an ERA a little over 4, but all Indian hitters except the catchers are hitting over .250 and two are over .300. Strong pitching vs dominant hitting always makes for an awesome game and this one has both.
The proverbial dumpster fire of the weekend is the Washington Nationals vs the Atlanta Braves. Right now there is 26.5 games separating these teams in the division and are the epitome of “hot” and “not”. There is not much to say about this series, but if you enjoy seeing a team get stomped on, this is the one to watch.
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