1. St. Louis Cardinals (87-50, Last Week-1): Not a good week for the Cardinals going 3-4, but their 5.5 game lead is still safe because they only have three games left against the Pirates.
2. Kansas City Royals (82-55, Last Week-2): Swept by the White Sox at home and now have a four game losing streak. They already have the division on lock, but they have to avoid losing streaks because Toronto is only four back for the top AL spot.
3. Pittsburgh Pirates (81-55, Last Week-3): Also a lock for the playoffs but not for a home game as they only lead the Cubs by two games. They have seven games remaining against the Cubs and if they continue to struggle against NL Central teams (23-34) they will be playing that Wild Card game at Wrigley.
4. Toronto Blue Jays (78-59, Last Week-4): They have cooled down a bit, but have only lost one series since the Trade Deadline. That series loss was against the Yankees, so they have to play them better this time around to take hold of the division.
5. Los Angeles Dodgers (79-58, Last Week-6): Essentially have won the division after sweeping the Giants early last week and now lead by 8.5 games. The only question is: Can they finally win in the playoffs?
6. Chicago Cubs (79-57, Last Week-5): Dexter Fowler has been fantastic over his last 30 games with a slash line of .306/.418/.640 and has a career high 17 home runs this season.
7. New York Yankees (77-59, Last Week-8): Losing Nathan Eovaldi for at least two weeks is a big blow because he has been one of their better pitchers of late and will not be able to play in one of the most important series of the season that starts Thursday against the Blue Jays.
8. New York Mets (76-61, Last Week-9): It can never be easy for the Mets can it? The whole Matt Harvey controversy is not needed for a team that has choked its last two chances of making the playoffs. Lucky for them they have Cespedes who has been a great addition.
9. Houston Astros (75-63, Last Week-7): Started a 10 game road trip yesterday with a loss to the A’s and now lead by only two games with a four game series at Texas in six days. Winning on the road is necessary if they want to win the division.
10. Texas Rangers (72-64, Last Week-11): All of a sudden their rotation looks pretty nice with Hamels, Gallardo, and Holland. Couple that with their impressive offense, they are a team that can make some noise in October if things go their way.
11. Minnesota Twins (71-66, Last Week-12): Seems like every time they win the Rangers win and every time they lose the Rangers lose. Going to be hard to make the playoffs if they can’t take advantage of Rangers’ losses.
12. Washington Nationals (71-66, Last Week-13): Must win the next two games against the Mets because if not they will be at least five games back with only three head-to-head match ups remaining.
13. San Francisco Giants (71-67, Last Week-10): A streaky team all year long finally had a bad streak when the Dodgers had a good one and that has pretty much eliminated them as they are 8.5 games away from a playoff spot.
14. Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (69-68, Last Week-14): Winning two of three from the Rangers was huge because they would be on the fringe of becoming irrelevant if they did not.
15. Tampa Bay Rays (67-70, Last Week-15): Their impressive pitching depth has kept them afloat all year, but the injuries were too many as they missed out on a lot of starts from Cobb, Moore, Smyly, and Odorizzi.
16. Cleveland Indians (67-69, Last Week-16): Their recent hot stretch seems to be too late and trailing by five games will not be easy to comeback from this late especially with seven games remaining with both the Royals and Twins.
17. Seattle Mariners (66-72, Last Week-21): They have a chance to be a spoiler for AL West teams as the Mariners still have some stars that can change a game very quickly.
18. Chicago White Sox (65-71, Last Week-20): If Samardzija wasn’t so bad this year (4.87 ERA), maybe we would be talking about the White Sox as a wild card team, but instead they have to wait until next year to contend again.
19. Arizona Diamondbacks (66-72, Last Week-17): This year has allowed the D-Backs to further develop a solid core in Goldschmidt, Pollock, Peralta, and Inciarte.
20. Boston Red Sox (65-72, Last Week-22): Jackie Bradley Jr. has been a flat out stud over his last 30 games with a slash line of .406/.463/.844 and seven home runs. He has been even hotter over his last seven games hitting .560/.593/1.080.
21. San Diego Padres (65-73, Last Week-19): Since not trading anyone away at the deadline they have gone 15-20 further proving what a damaging season this has been for the future of the Padres.
22. Baltimore Orioles (65-72, Last Week-18): Since leading the second wild card on August 17th, they have collapsed going 4-16. This bad stretch now has them tied for last in the AL East.
23. Detroit Tigers (63-74, Last Week-23): No matter how good Miggy is, having four pitchers in the rotation who have ERAs of 4.86 or higher will not allow them to win many games.
24. Milwaukee Brewers (61-76, Last Week-25): Since the horrible start in the beginning of the season (5-18), they have practically been a .500 team the rest of the season, which is where everyone expected them to be.
25. Oakland A’s (59-79, Last Week-24): They are the only team other than the Astros to have a positive run differential (+1) in the AL West, which further proves how unlucky they have been.
26. Cincinnati Reds (57-79, Last Week-26): Joey Votto has been on fire since the All-Star Break with a slash line of .397/.575/.718. If the Reds were good, he would have a great chance of being MVP.
27. Colorado Rockies (57-80, Last Week-27): Carlos Gonzalez has quietly set a new career high in home runs with 36. A big reason for this is because he has been healthy for a majority of the season.
28. Miami Marlins (57-81, Last Week-29): It’s kind of funny that they are third in their division but third to last in the Treinta, but they deserve that spot because they have been disappointing all season long.
29. Philadelphia Phillies (53-85, Last Week-30): Since the All-Star Break they have gone 24-23 in what has been impressive turnaround for a team that looked so bad just two months ago.
30. Atlanta Braves (55-83, Last Week-28): Before yesterday’s game they had a -101 in their last 20 games. That is incredibly bad, almost unfathomable. (Twitter-Peter Gammons)
Sources:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/schedule/index.jsp
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/index.jsp
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/140451408/yoenis-cespedes-plays-in-first-game-for-mets
http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/sortable.jsp
Twitter-Peter Gammons