Wouldn't call it parity, but all 7 teams have playoff seeding on the line in the remaining 55s schedule. Cubs hold a precarious 1 game lead over the Whiz Kids, with a head to head meeting on 9/10, and two dangerously and loaded teams in the Yankees and Dodgers. Whiz do not have an easy path, with the Cubs, Dodgers and two with the Yankees. Yankees will try to hold the #3 seed over the Twins, but must run the gauntlet against 1st Division competition, with 5 games in a week, with 2 doubleheaders and a single. Twins are idle until playoffs, and are tenuous #4, depending on outcomes of Yankees and Dodgers contests. Dodgers with a sweep of the remaining schedule, to 9 wins, could advance as high as the #3.
And, in a no less intriguing tilt, the #7 Americans and #6 Pirates play their finale on Monday. A Pirates win would lock the #6,and a first round home game vs. the same Americans, to be played 2 days later. An Americans win would forge a tie, but would become the #6 seed based on season series. The season series has had a run differential of (3), with Amerks winning 2 of the 3 in walk-off fashion! Managers LaBarge and Dalton will have some decisions to make on how much front line pitching to use or save, and get players ABs and reps, while getting benchs playing time.
And, " That's Baseball Suzyn!" - God I love this game!
The Dodgers, likely the 5 seed (mostly because they played 6 more games vs the Cubs, Whiz, and Yanks than the 4th seed Twins did) will play a regular season game vs the Cubs (a regularly scheduled game - not a make-up) one day after they play their first playoff game. I'm not sure that this is fair to the Dodgers. Maybe we need to make sure that the teams playing the "bottom 3" schedule can only finish as high as 5th in the standings (no higher than any of the teams playing "top 4" schedule).
Regardless of win-loss records, the Twins, Pirates, and Americans will occupy the five, six, and seven seeds. This was dictated by the league before the season started due to the unbalanced schedules.
I have to stand corrected and apologize if I caused any confusion on where the seedings stand. With the two tier system, based on the unbalanced schedule, each team has a preset playoff margin. The top tier teams cannot fall farther than 4th, and the lower tier cannot rise to higher than 5th. Bottom line some quality and fun baseball ahead!
