Talking Baseball

I usually do my monthly O's and Nats' baseball post on the last day of the month.  However, I wanted to wait this month and see how the O's made out in their series with Toronto before saying anything that might have jinxed them.

Well, after losing 2 out of three to the Blue Jays and falling 4 games behind, the O's chances of winning the division don't look good.   A metric I once heard discussed goes that as long as a team remains the number of games back equal to or less than the number of weeks left in the season they have a shot.  (Of course this doesn't always hold up as there have been some major collapses by teams like the Phillies in 1964 and Red Sox in 2011 where they had  huge divisional leads but ultimately blew it (click here.))

 So with 4 weeks left in the season and the O's back 4 they are still very much in it.  However, they need things to break their way and a wild card spot may be their best and only post-season hope.

The Nats on the other hand are in pretty good shape up 9 games and should enter the playoffs primed and ready.  However, we've seen this movie before haven't we?  It's the playoffs where the Nationals need to step up their act as they have been major disappointments once they start post-season play.  This year they have veteran manager Dusty Baker to help guide them thru the post season.  However, a look at Dusty's post-season managerial record (19-26) doesn't exactly inspire a lot of optimism particularly with the Nats having such a choke label hanging round their necks.  Like the Nats, Dusty will get you there but all bets are off after that.

 
Good news, it's September and there is at least some talk of "pennant races" for both our local area teams.  Nothing like a pennant race in September to give you something to look forward to on a daily basis.