The Mad Playoff Scramble in MLB

Help! I’m a serial blog poster!!! And I’m not ashamed to say it.

Lets turn our focus to baseball for a minute, as the 2007 regular season enters its ultimate week. The AL seemed to be settled, as the Angels and Indians clinched Sunday, and only the placing of the Red Sox and Yankees need to be settled.
But National League as usual is a totally different matter. No divisions have been settled and All three leaders are holding on to tenuous leads. The Mets are trying their best not to meltdown, since the wild card is a morass of teams. (Hey Bob Costas, do you still think the wild card is a useless waste of time?) The Cubs look as if they are coming together at the right time. And the D-Backs are trying to shake the Padres and the hard charging Rockies. I have long maintained that the wild card is not a reserve chute for a coasting divisional leader, It forces teams to win as much as possible to sew up a divisional title. Winning a wild card is respectable in itself. In the AL where I have long maintained that a team needs to play .550 ball (90 wins) or better to be in my eyes a solid team, all playoff bound teams have met that criteria. In the NL, two of the four teams are close to 90 wins while the Central long regarded as the weakest division will finish with at most 89 wins . Take note though the NL Central is where the last three NL champs have come from .
The scramble for the Wild Card is for lack of more apt…WILD! Three teams within 1.5 games. The Padres are leading the pack now and still have dreams and designs on winning the NL West but after a damaging home sweep by the Rockies and a usual meltdown by Milton Bradley may be on shaky ground.. They are being chased by the Phillies, who are still trying to run down the Mets who have been stumbling badly down the stretch. Both these teams are being chased by the white-hot Rockies who are making a last desperate charge, winning 8 in a row. The Braves are still on the fringes but have too many teams to get past and too few games to do it in. Its gonna be a fun week to watch. You have divisions that are not at all settled and a wild card spot that a second place team is not assured of getting, so everyone will play hard. Did I mention that I love this time of the year?