Wild Card

With the Detroit Tigers winning again today, the Twins are now 11.5 games out of first place. Anyone who knows me understands that I don't think this lead is insurmountable. Nevertheless, the Twins are a little bit closer to the Wild Card leading Chicago White Sox (a very little...9.5 back) than Detroit, and it's not a bad idea to keep track of where things stand in that race as well as the overall division race.

Right now, the Twins are 6th in the Wild Card standings, which look like this:

1.) Chicago White Sox - -
2.) New York Yankees - 5.5
3.) Texas - 6.5
4.) Oakland - 6.5
5.) Toronto - 7
6.) Minnesota - 9.5

In effect, however, the Twins are really in 5th, because Texas and Oakland are tied for the AL West division lead, meaning one of them would make the playoffs by virtue of winning the division. That means the Twins would need to leapfrog four teams to get into the playoffs by this "safety valve." I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this is an easy task; jumping over that many teams is unlikely, not to mention making up 9.5 games. But if the Twins play at even close to the level at which they've played over the past week, it is certainly something that can be accomplished. I look forward to an exciting stretch run. Go Twins!