It’s amazing what can happen in two days, isn’t it? Or what can seem to happen?
Baseball’s Last Best Action Involves D’backs And Giants
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Monday morning, the Angels seemed to have a reasonable chance of catching the Rangers. If they could just take three games in their four-game series, the Angels would be right in the thick of it. Well, they've lost the first two games and they've lost them badly. The Angels are now six games out of first place, and a million miles behind in Ye Olde Run Differential Department. According to Baseball Prospectus's Playoff Odds Report, the Angels' chances of winning the West have fallen to four percent. Which is still worth considering if you live near The Happiest Place on Earth, but not if you're the rest of us. The Angels aren't nearly as good as the Rangers and they're way behind. Game, set, and (almost) match.
Monday morning, the second-place Cardinals trailed the Brewers by five games. Which is a lot, but the Cardinals had the better run differential plus some guy called El Hombre and another guy called La Russa, so you had to take them at least moderately seriously as down-the-stretch contenders. Well, not so much any more. Monday night, the Cardinals lost to the Pirates and the Brewers shut out the Dodgers. Tuesday night, the Cardinals lost in the bottom of the 11th and the Brewers won in the bottom of the ninth. The Brewers have a 95-percent chance of winning the N.L. Central.
As things stand now, there’s just one good divisional race left: the National League West.
According to BP, the World's Champion San Francisco Giants have a 63-percent chance of winning the West ... which seems awfully strange, considering they're now 3-1/2 games behind the first-place Arizona Cinderellas.
How could the Giants possibly be rated as somewhat heavy favorites over the Diamondbacks? Well, because just last year 1) the Giants outscored their enemies by 114 runs, while 2) the Diamondacks were outscored by 123 runs. Like it or not, that 237-run swing does show up if you’re trying to project the following season, even if you’re doing your projecting in the middle of August.
But does the Playoff Odds report know that Jonathan Sanchez is feeling sickly? That Carlos Beltrán is out indefinitely? That Andrés Torres, Pat Burrell, Jeff Keppinger, Nate Schierholtz, Aaron Rowand, and Sergio Romo all are ailing? It's actually quite an impressive list, and Baseball Prospectus, for all their many and varied powers, might blow up a server farm somewhere if they tried to input the Giants' current sick list.
I'm a big fan of the Playoff Odds Report. I suspect the math is solid, and if there's a better playoff-odds report out there, I've not seen it. But I don't believe this one. I'm not saying the Diamondback's 3-1/2 game lead is solid or that they even deserve to be the favorites. But given their lead and their general health and Bruce Bochy's allergic reaction to Brandon Belt, I gotta think the D'backs have at least a 50-50 chance of winning this thing.
Which would, of course, be the Story of the Year.
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