Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A Fan of Close Pennant Races? Tuesday was not your lucky day

As the title indicates, Tuesday did nothing to ensure that this year's pennant races would go down to a photo finish.

It didn't look that way initially as the Twins were able to squeak out a win over the Tigers in the first game of their double-header. However, in the second game the Tigers were able to stretch their lead back to 2 games as Justin Verlander pitched just well enough to let the Tigers hold on to beat the Twins.

The Twins still aren't out of it yet. If they can pull out victories tonight and Thursday we will be going into the weekend with a tied AL Central. Personally, i'm indifferent towards who wins the AL Central, I just want to see an interesting last weekend in baseball.

In the NL Wild Card race, things didn't go so great on Tuesday. The Braves ended up losing a close one to the Marlins 5-4. Meanwhile, the Brewers went into Colorado with a chance to make an impact on the race and keep it close. Unfortunately, they played more like the 77-80 team that they are than a team with any sense of motivation.

While it's nothing more than a consolation......they at least forced extra innings. The Brewers went into the 9th down 5-2 and tied it on wait for it.........(a Jason Kendall three-run homer).....and no that's not a typo.....Jason Kendall actually did something productive offensively by hitting a game-tying home run.

However, this being the Brewers and all, they found a way to not win last nights game. For this, they turned to veteran reliever Dave Weathers who gave-up the walk off home run to Chris Iannetta.

Well what does this say for todays game? For the Twins, it's pretty much a must-win game tonight against the Tigers. While losing tonight won't equate to mathematical elimination, tonights pitching match-up favors the Twins and if they lose tonight they'll likely be dead-team walking tomorrow.

For the Braves, they are more or less in win-out or else mode. For the Rockies, well they tend to find new ways to win games and they get a chance to tee-off against Jeff Suppan so all they need to do is continue what they are doing.

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