A DIVISIVE WEDNESDAY

A LOOK AT EACH LEAGUE AND DIVISION

HERE’S WHAT I’M LOOKING AT…

OVERALL RECORD AND PITCHING BY DIVISION

BATTING BY DIVISION

THE AL STANDINGS

The AL breaks very neatly into five groups of three. The top three, the Tigers, Astros, and Blue Jays, are the first-place teams. They are essentially tied for the league's leadership. Remember, pay attention to the loss column. You can make up wins, but you can’t recoup losses. The Tigers fell 8-5 to the Pirates for their eighth loss in nine games. They are entitled to a slump. However, they are 14-17 since June 14.

The next three teams — the Yankees, Mariners, and Red Sox — are the current Wild Card teams.

The Yankees are three games up in the WC race and three games out of first in the AL East. They face the Jays again today after losing the first game of their series and winning last night, breaking Toronto’s franchise record 11-game home winning streak. The Yankees homered three times last night, including the 18th by Cody Bellinger, who hit 18 all last season for the Cubs. Bellinger also had two doubles. All three XBH were hit off Max Scherzer. The Yankees are 16-6 when hitting at least three homers in a game, 40-39 when they don’t.

The Mariners ended the Brewers' 11-game winning streak, one day after it claimed sole possession of MLB’s best record. Seattle won 1-0 as Cal Raleigh hit his 39th homer of the season. OptaStats posted this: Number of times in MLB history a player has: homered in a 1-0 win: over 900. Caught a 2-or-fewer-hit shutout: over 4,000. Caught a game with a dozen or more strikeouts: over 14,000. Done all three in the same game: 1 (Cal Raleigh). Ted Williams homered in five 1-0 victories, the most of any player. Mr. Baseball shares that Raleigh tied Ken Griffey Jr. for the Mariners’ record for most HR in his first 5 seasons, with 132.

The Red Sox have now dropped four of five games coming out of the break. They entered the break on a 10-game winning streak against the dregs and have slumped against contenders. They lost last night, 4-1, as Phillies lefthander Cristopher Sánchez threw a complete game, allowing just four hits, striking out 12 (including Roman Anthony four times), and walking none. Oh, and in the 1st inning, Philadelphia scored another run on a catcher’s interference.

The quote of the day comes from the crew chief of the umpires of the Phillies/Sox series concerning the catcher’s interference.

“That’s just what makes you love baseball, right? It’s just the romantic thing about it. Weird things pop up, and sometimes you can go months without anything, and sometimes you can have one in the bottom of the [10th] and one in the first. So that’s just kind of how it goes.” - umpire Quinn Wolcott.