Wildcard Spoils Potential Division Race
7:17 PM EDT Sunday, September 23 2007
The Yankees won today and the Sox lost, which has the Yankees 1.5 games back in the AL East. With the Sox off tomorrow, the Yankees could pull to within 1 game of the Sox with 6 to play. It's interesting how the wild card has changed things. People have noted quite a few parallels between this season and the 1978 season. One big difference is that if the Yankees and the Sox were tied, there would be no one game playoff and no Bucky Dent. In fact, there is very little left to play for in the AL. We know the Indians, Angels, Yankees and Sox will be the 4 teams in the playoffs AL, but they could be in any order, 1-4 seeds. Of course every team wants to get that number one seed, but I think all the teams think it is more important to get their starting rotation lined up. So it's too bad, this combined Yankees charge and Sox collapse basically means nothing. I was in New York this weekend, wanting to get an update on things, and every time I asked someone if the Sox won or lost, they all responded with a "who cares?". Everyone I talked to about it agreed on one thing, they don't want the Yankees to have to play the Angels in a 5 game series, which I totally agree with. The good thing about the wild card is that it lines up another possible Yankees v. Sox ALCS, which is something that could never happen without the wildcard.
