I find myself in a weird place today. Across the American League teams that were picked to finish last are currently doing extremely well. And teams that were picked to finish at the top are currently mired in mediocrity.
In the AL East, Baltimore of all teams is leading the division, while the Tampa Bay Rays are 4-4 and the Boston Red Sox are 2-6. Then in the AL Central, Kansas City is leading the way.
And then we get to the AL West. My Mariners (as of Wednesday morning) are riding a five-game winning streak, and they swept the Oakland A’s. Griffey’s back, half the lineup is changed and the best news is that Ichiro is finally off the disabled list and is set to start Wednesday night.
But let’s hold everything up right there (insert sound of record being lifted from the record player, tires squealing to a stop, etc). It’s April. Baseball goes until October. That’s a really long time, and I can’t quite bring myself to believe all of this change in the standings is going to stay like this.
One can almost ignore the first two months of the baseball season completely. The games are more for fans’ entertainment, and the real season doesn’t actually start until around the All-Star game. How many times have you seen the Red Sox or Yankees play terribly in April and May, then make a surge and end up at the top of the division by the end of August? A lot, let’s just put it that way.
There are 162 games, so any joy I feel over the Mariners starting 6-2 is minor. I’m too much of a cynic, and I’ve watched them tank it too many times in the last months of the season to be anything but a little happy that they’re fun to watch this year. They’re competitive, and their pitching is finally healthy, so it should be a interesting to see where they are in a few months, but two weeks into the season is too early.
But the early irregularities and surprises got me thinking. What if the season ended and the teams that are on top right now made the playoffs? Of course this is completely crazy and pure fantasy, but wouldn’t it be hilarious if the Royals made the playoffs?
So like I do when I have too much free time on my hands, I turned to my Xbox 360 for answers. I set up a playoff in MLB 2K9 where the Mariners had won the AL West, the Royals won in the AL Central, and the Orioles came out on top in the AL East. I gave the AL Wild Card to the Toronto Blue Jays for their stellar 6-3 record through nine games.
In the National League, I penciled in (tentatively) the Marlins as the champs in the East, the Cubs in the Central, and the Padres in the West. The wild card was St. Louis.
Then I let the computer simulate all the games in the 5-7-7 playoff format, and here’s what happened:
The Mariners played Toronto and the Orioles played Kansas City in the AL Divisional Series. Kansas City managed an upset in game two, but otherwise laid an egg and lost the series 3-1 to the Orioles. The Mariners battled and actually ended up beating the Blue Jays in five games. Shocking.
Then in the AL Championship Series my Mariners showed their true form. In five games they lost to the Orioles. Felix Hernandez and Erik Bedard both got blown out of the water. Yup, that’s more like it.
On the National League side, the Cubs rolled through San Diego, and Florida swept St. Louis. I’m pretty sure the Cubs were made way too good this year in the game, because then they swept the Marlins, outscoring them 24-5 in four games.
And who won the World Series? My Xbox froze after game three, with the Cubs up two games to one on the Orioles, so we will never know. I thought this was really fitting considering Chicago’s supposed curse. So Cub fans, if my scientific calculations are right, your team is going to make the World Series, then some act of God is going to stop you (again) from winning. I can’t tell whether I should take some perverse joy, or just feel sad in the outcome.
Hey, but at least in the pseudo MLB world on my Xbox the Cubs got to the show. The Mariners did what they always do. Get far enough to raise expectations, then dash them. Here’s to hoping that they are still around in August to change that this year.
[email protected]