A.L. Playoff Positioning as Texas plays Minnesota

The Minnesota Twins and the Texas Rangers are each fighting for positioning in the American League playoff picture. It fairly obvious at this point of the season that the “wildcard” winner will be coming out of the A.L. East. The New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays are fighting for the East division title, while the Red Sox are falling further and further behind due to injuries. It looks to be a case of “pick your poison” for the Twins and Rangers. The Yankees have been the best team in the Majors all season long, and are loaded with All-Star pitchers and MVP caliber hitters. Tampa isn’t too far behind in either of the categories as they are 2nd to the Bombers in most categories.

The Rangers are having a rough second half of the season, but still maintain an 8.5 game lead over the Oakland Athletics for first place in the West. Texas has lost 9 of their last 15 games, and have struggled with the bats over the last month. The one player that hasn’t had many problems at the plate has been Josh Hamilton. Hamilton leads all of baseball with a .357 batting average. He ranks 2nd in slugging percentage and OPS, and is in the top 5 of 3 other hitting categories. The difference for Hamilton and the Rangers this season has been the addition of Vladimir Guerrero. Guerrero was thought to be washed up after a poor season for the Angels last year, but he’s come through huge for the Rangers. He has 91 runs batted in and 22 homeruns, and is batting close to .300. The added power production has made it hard for opposing pitchers to pitch through the middle of this Texas line-up.

The problem for this Rangers team according to most baseball handicappers has been their lack of depth in the pitching department. Adding Cliff Lee to any pitching staff is like having a huge band aid for a little cut. Lee has actually had a tough go of it thus far as he’s allowed 18 runs over his last 3 outings. However, this is more of a blip on the radar than a trend. Expect Lee to carry this Texas team deep into the playoffs.

The Twins may be the hottest team in the A.L. right now. They’ve won 11 of their last 15 games, and are now 19 games over .500. They have been fighting with the Chicago White Sox all year long, but have now opened up a 4.5 game lead. This series with Texas has the potential to be very important as the Sox are playing the last place Orioles.

Joe Mauer is being Joe Mauer. He’s batting .330, and has an OBP over .400. Like Texas, the difference this year for Minnesota has been the acquisition of Delmon Young from the Rays. Young is starting to live up to the hype of being the 1st pick overall in the MLB draft a few years ago. Young is batting .311 with 15 homeruns and 88 runs batted in. His presence in the line-up has been enormous especially since Justin Morneau has missed almost 40 games this season. The Twins don’t have as big of a cushion as Texas, and will need to fight to the finish to pull out the A.L. Central title.

At the beginning of the season many baseball picks had the Twins running away with the Central, and Texas fighting for 2nd place behind the Angels. That’s why they play the game. This will be a hard fought series that may have huge implications by seasons end.

Related posts:

1. Weaver hopes to cool Texas bats Thursday
2. Battle of American League’s Best: Texas vs. Boston
3. Texas A&M tries to stop Red Hot Texas
4. ALDS Game 5: Rangers and Rays
5. Mariners throw Hernandez at Red Hot Rangers

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