By Danny Powell
How on Earth did we get here? On July 1, the virtual midpoint of the Major League Baseball season, the New York Mets had a four-game lead over the Atlanta Braves in the National League East, San Diego led the NL West by a game, and the Milwaukee Brewers held what seemed like a commanding six and a half game lead over the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central. Now none of those former division leaders will be playing baseball in October.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and Padres, considered the West’s two strongest teams in the league’s strongest division for much of the season, both missed the playoffs. The Brewers, the best team in baseball for much of the first half, are outside looking in as the postseason begins. The Mets, who many though would dominate the National League entering the season, will watch October at home. And all this was determined in the season’s final month.
This was the most exciting September of baseball in recent memory. Not a single NL team wrapped up a playoff spot until the Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks punched their postseason tickets on September 28. The month saw close races, two teams playing brilliant baseball, a one-game playoff to determine the wild-card winner, and perhaps the biggest collapse in baseball history.
The Diamondbacks, who trailed by just a game and a half on July 1, had a strong second half and fought off the Dodgers, Padres, and Rockies to win the West. Strong pitching and a talented, young line-up were enough to lead the way to the best record in the NL and the top seed in the playoffs.
The Brewers scuffled through July with a 9-16 mark for the month, while the Cubs turned things around after Lou Piniella’s late-June tantrum to leave the two teams deadlocked heading into August. Not much changed in August as the Cubs entered September a game and a half up on Milwaukee. Chicago closed out the division led by leftfielder Alfonso Soriano, who had a brilliant final month of the season, smashing 14 of his 33 home runs.
Holding true to their old nickname, the Mets’ September debacle was nothing short of amazin’. Seven games up on the Philadelphia Phillies as late as September 12, New York went a dismal 5-12 in their final seventeen games, setting a new gold standard for stretch run collapses. Meanwhile the fighting Phils got hot, winning an astounding 13 of their last 17 to steal the division from the Mets, who had held a share of the division lead from May 16 to September 28.
Then there was the surprise of the 2007 season, the Colorado Rockies. Unquestionably baseball’s hottest team, the Rocks won 13 of their last 14 scheduled games to tie the Padres for the wild card, forcing the first one-game playoff since the Mets defeated the Cincinnati Reds in 1999. The game, hosted by Colorado by virtue of the regular season head-to-head match-up, was one of the most exciting games of the last 10 years.
Appearing to be down and out after Scott Hairston gave the Pads an 8-6 lead in the top of the 13th inning, Colorado bounced back with three runs of their own off one of the best closers in history, Trevor Hoffman, to win in the bottom half of the inning. Hoffman, who holds the all-time saves record, managed to record just one out as the Rockies hit back-to-back doubles, a triple, and a sacrifice fly to gain admission into October baseball.
So now we are left with four playoff teams in the National League that no one saw coming at the halfway mark of the season. While none of the teams more than 90 wins, and even the American League’s fourth seed, the Yankees, have 94 wins, the NL bracket is intriguing.
The Cubs and Diamondbacks are led by strong pitching staffs, the most important ingredient to postseason success. The Phillies and Rockies are playing their best baseball of the year at exactly the right time. So after a thrilling September of NL baseball, fans could be in for another wild ride in October.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella’s notorious flare for the dramatic may very well have sparked the Cubs into a wild postseason run. (sports.yahoo.com)