Daily Pennant Race: Phillies Clinch!

We’re midway through September, which means it’s time to turn things up a notch here at JoeBlogs with some daily baseball pennant race talk.

Pennant races > the playoffs … and it isn’t close — I’ve talked a lot about how out of step I feel with what I assume to be the vast majority of sports fans who just can’t get enough playoffs. To me, the playoffs are a great fireworks show. I mean, who doesn’t like a great fireworks show? But a pennant race … that’s something bigger.

Pennant races have shape and form and history. Monday night, the Phillies clinched the National League East and that was the crescendo of a story it took more than five months to tell — a story filled with intrigue (what the heck happened to Aaron Nola?) and wonder (Kyle Schwarber has hit 22 of his 53 homers against lefties!) and heartbreak (Zack Wheeler was having the best season of his ecellent career when he got hurt) and old friends.

You just can’t capture all of that in a short series. They can (and will) keep adding aerial cakes and whistles and strobes and rockets to the playoff fireworks show, and that’s all well and good. I’ll watch and ooh and ahh with everyone else. But I’d rather have a great pennant race.

These Phillies love to do things in style — they have this wonderful “bunch of paolookas just playin’ ball and having fun” vibe — and so Monday’s three-hour back-and-forth, up and down, now you see me, now you don’t frenzy was just right.

Yes, it’s true, we have to imagine the drama these days because the Phillies had basically clinched the division already (if it wasn’t Monday, it would have been Tuesday or Wednesday — they had a 12-game lead over the free-falling Mets) and the Dodgers have a 99.999999999% chance (or something like that) of making the postseason. But that’s OK; part of the joy of sports is making these games FEEL more important than they really are. That’s at the very heart of being a fan.*

In any case, this was sort of the perfect Phillies game — Kyle Schwarber mashed a homer in the first inning, and that was his 22nd home run off lefties this season. According to the indispensable Sarah Langs (and Elias), this ties Schwarbs with Matt Olson (2021) and Stan Musial (1949) for the most home runs by a lefty against lefties. It should be noted that Baseball Reference lists Musial with 19 homers against lefties.

They list the top lefty-on-lefty crime seasons like so:

I always seem to forget the Big Klu was a left. I never think of him that way.

Anyway, the Dodgers tied it up on a Mookie sac fly, the Dodgers took the lead on a Max Muncy homer and another Mookie sac fly, the Phillies took back the lead on a Weston Wilson home run — to quote my pal Mike Schur, doesn’t Weston Wilson sound like the name Preston Wilson would give to the police when caught at a party with alcohol?

Mookie then homered to tie the game again — Mookie is back to being a one-man wrecking crew, he’s hitting .354/.411/.583 in his last 36 games, and I’m all for it.

Then there was a Bryce Harper homer (Phillies lead!) and an Andy Pages homer (Dodgers tie!) and finally a zombie run scored on a zombie sac fly in the 10th to give the Phillies the victory and the National League East. Champagne was popped — or I guess it was apple juice because Bryce Harper doesn’t drink.

“Everything is awesome right now,” Kyle Schwarber said.

There are three teams that might clinch a division title in the near future.

In the American League Central, the Tigers look like they might be next; their magic number is seven over Cleveland. But it must be said that the Guardians are hot right now — they’ve won four in a row and nine of their last 10 — and the Tigers have been playing meandering baseball for the last few weeks. The A’s swept them. The White Sox took two of three.

Over the last two weeks of the season, the Tigers will play Cleveland six times, three in each ballpark, so this has a chance to be an old-fashioned pennant race. The first Cleveland-Detroit game is tonight at Comerica, and as part of our Scorekeeping Celebration, I’m going to score the game.

The Blue Jays now have a magic number of 8 in the American League East, and what a story this is turning out to be. Let’s give a special shoutout to 35-year-old George Springer, who is more DH than outfielder at his age, but he’s having the best offensive season of his life. He’s hitting a career-high .302 with a career-high .394 on-base percentage, he’s going to hit 30 home runs for the first time since 2019, he’s going to score 100 runs for the first time since 2018, he’s stolen 16 bases without being caught, and he has been a beast (.329/.412/.544) in high leverage situations. Plus, you know, leadership. He’s a very strong candidate for my Willie Stargell Award.

There’s still just enough time for the Yankees — or even the Red Sox — to catch the Blue Jays, but it’s looking less and less likely. They’ve both been playing meh baseball lately, and the Yankees just took a lifeless 7-0 loss to the woeful Twins, a team they have famously kicked around for 25 years. Giancarlo Stanton was bananas hot back in August, but in his last 15 games, he’s hitting .118, and he has struck out 27 times in 56 plate appearances. He took the golden sombrero on Monday against the Twins.

And the Brewers’ magic number over the Cubs is also eight games in the National League Central. The Brewers have already punched their postseason ticket and seem almost assured of a first-round bye. We’ve got some thoughts on Brice Turang coming up in the next few days so for now, I’ll leave this here.

The really fun stuff this year is happening out West — in the National League West, the Padres keep stubbornly chasing those Dodgers. They trail by just 2.5 games. Unfortunately, the Padres and Dodgers don’t play again this season, so they’ll be battling each other from a distance. But this is still a fun race to watch, even though there’s nothing but pride on the line — both teams will make the playoffs and neither team will get a first-round bye.

Arizona is only a game and a half behind the Mets for the final wildcard spot and the Giants are only two games back (along with the Reds) so that chase for the final playoff spot in the NL could be wild. The Diamondbacks have a ridiculous schedule the rest of the way — two more with the Giants, then Philadelphia, then the Dodgers and then the Padres — so they seem like the least likely team to actually win that spot. But I also think they might be the best of the group, even with their pitching woes.

By the way, here’s a fun little trivia question for you: Who, at this precise moment, leads National League position players in bWAR? If you guessed Shohei Ohtani, congratulations, no, you’re wrong. You’re also wrong if you guessed Juan Soto, Pete Crow Armstrong, Fernando Tatis, Trea Turner or Paul Skenes (wrong on the last one because I said position players, come on, pay attention!).

So I’ll tell you it’s someone on the Arizona Diamondbacks.

So, if you guessed Corbin Carroll, congratulations, no, you’re still wrong.

Ah, it’s Ketel Marte.

Wrong!

The correct answer is 25-year-old shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, who is somehow having a seven-WAR season with absolutely nobody noticing. The guy is hitting .290, he’s walked 90 times, he’s hit 19 homers, he’s stolen 26 bases, he’s going to score and drive in 100 runs, he plays a solid shortstop, I mean, more or less overnight, he’s turned into a fantastic player.

The real traffic jam is in the American League West where the streaking Mariners — who have won nine games in a row — now have a half-game lead over the Astros (who look like they might have lost Yordan Alvarez to injury again) and a three-and-a-half game lead over those stubborn Rangers, who have seemed determined all season to stay in contention without ever actually getting into the postseason. The Rangers have two more with Houston, the Astros, then have three with the Mariners; this should be a fun ride to the finish line.

Hi friends, don’t worry, I’m still here. I’ve been letting Joe do his thing the last few weeks and staying active behind the scenes. (I also took a trip down to Arizona to cover the Phoenix Mercury as they prepared for the WNBA Playoffs). A reminder that you can drop links for me to share in Discord.