Just a little peek behind the curtain into how I work on my power rankings throughout the week: I track every team and how they are doing in that given week, then as the weekend begins, I start to assemble my ranking order from Nos. 1-30.
Last week I spent this space giving you the facts as to how crazy the wild-card races are with each team having fewer than 50 games to play. The races in both leagues are getting crazier –especially the race for the American League’s third and final wild-card spot.
In fact, how this week’s rankings were going to look changed a lot, with Nos. 14-19 changing substantially. Through late afternoon on Saturday, the Rangers were No. 14, Tigers No. 15, Blue Jays No. 16, Twins No. 17, Guardians No. 18 and Orioles No. 19.
In less than 24 hours, with the Orioles winning on Aug. 15 and 16 and the Rangers losing two of three to the Athletics, the Orioles are now ahead of all those teams. As you’ll see, now the Orioles are No. 14, Rangers No. 15, Tigers No. 16, Blue Jays No. 17, Twins No. 18 and Guardians No. 19.
I make no predictions how this will play out, but it demonstrates how razor thin the margin for error is between these six teams.
This week ahead shows the Orioles playing four games against the Rays and three against the Yankees. The Blue Jays have three against the Rays and three against the Yankees. The Rangers and Tigers have much easier weeks, with the Rangers at home against the struggling Nationals for two and the Angels for three. The Tigers are on the road for three at Pittsburgh and three at Kansas City. The Twins host the Braves for three and then travel to San Diego for three. The Guardians host the Giants for three and then go to Colorado.
The National League isn’t quite as dense in terms of numbers of teams vying for the last two wild-card places, but is very close.
The Brewers, Braves and Dodgers lead their divisions, and the Cubs have all but locked down the No. 1 wild-card spot. After that, the Phillies and Padres are in a literal tie at 67-58 for the second and third spots. The Diamondbacks are one game behind at 66-59. The Marlins and Cardinals are still in the mix, too.
As you can see, the next 40 games will be a real roller-coaster ride for the fans in Baltimore and 11 other cities vying for the last couple of playoff spots.
Here are this week’s MLB power rankings:
1. Milwaukee Brewers (77-48, No. 1 last week): As well as they have played all season, the Brewers’ lead is just five games over the Cubs. Lost in the hysteria of winning three of four at Dodger Stadium is that the wheels could have come off the cart if the series in L.A. had gone differently given that they had just been swept in San Diego.
2. Tampa Bay Rays (74-49, No. 2): The Rays still hold a five-game lead over the Yankees despite losing three in a row to the Orioles. My money is on the Rays’ pitching brains figuring out Freddy Peralta in time for the postseason. Liam Hicks may have been the best deadline pickup by a contender.
3. Los Angeles Dodgers (74-51, No. 3): The Dodgers looked like they were on the verge of a decent comeback week before Brewers came into L.A. and took three of four. Not that Tarik Skubal is pitching poorly, but in three starts (17 innings) he has given up six earned runs. Blake Snell looked amazing after his return from the injured list.
4. Atlanta Braves (74-50, No. 4): The Braves brought in outfielder Lane Thomas and right-hander Tyler Mahle at the deadline. Thomas has offered little, but Mahle has a 0.75 ERA in two starts (12 innings) and looks like a potential difference-maker. Sean Murphy, now the club’s backup catcher, recently returned.
5. Chicago Cubs (72-53, No. 5): The Cubs have used an astounding 39 pitchers up to this point in the season. Not sure how they’ll do from here on out, but if they can piece together 13 healthy effective arms, they’ll be a tough out in October.
6. Boston Red Sox (66-58, No. 6): A 2-5 week was kind of expected after such a prolonged hot streak. The Red Sox have Arizona and San Francisco this week at Fenway. In case you were curious, Carlos Narváez is 3-for-29 with the Orioles and Adley Rutschman is 1-for-17 with the Red Sox.
7. New York Yankees (69-55, No. 7): The Yankees are due to get Cody Bellinger back this week after a couple games of rehab. With Aaron Judge starting a slow ramp-up and Giancarlo Stanton not really ready, it seems they needed more than Luis García Jr. and Heliot Ramos at the deadline. But George Lombard Jr. has injected some life into the lineup.
8. San Diego Padres (67-58, No. 12): I’ll give president of baseball operation A.J. Preller this, he keeps plugging. He picked up Casey Mize and Robbie Ray at the deadline. He also found a couple useful pieces in Luis Rengifo and Austin Hays. They are 9-4 since the deadline. They have three at Citi Field and another three at Target Field this week.
9. Philadelphia Phillies (67-58, No. 9): The Phillies finished the week 4-2 thanks to coming back from a 5-0 deficit against the Twins on Aug. 16. Now they return home for series against plus-.500 clubs in Miami and St Louis. Aaron Nola had a very good outing at the “Field of Dreams,” but Andrew Painter was the starter that fell behind 5-0 to close out the week.
10. Chicago White Sox (65-58, No. 10): Manager Will Venable’s club showed its offense was more than ready for showtime this past weekend when they swept the Tigers away in a three-game series. The starting pitching is showing leaks, but Luis Castillo had by far his best start of the season on Aug. 12. He fired seven shutout innings against the Reds, allowing one hit and striking out ten.
11. Arizona Diamondbacks (66-59, No. 8)
12. Houston Astros (63-62, No. 11)
13. Miami Marlins (64-61, No. 13)
14. Baltimore Orioles (61-63, No. 18)
15. Texas Rangers (61-64, No. 14)
16. Detroit Tigers (60-64, No. 15)
17. Toronto Blue Jays (61-65, No. 23)
18. Minnesota Twins (60-65, No. 16)
19. Cleveland Guardians (60-65, No. 17)
20. St. Louis Cardinals (63-61, No. 21)
21. Pittsburgh Pirates (61-65, No. 20)
22. Cincinnati Reds (59-64, No. 24)
23. Washington Nationals (60-66, No. 19)
24. Seattle Mariners (59-66, No. 22)
25. New York Mets (56-69, No. 25)
26. San Francisco Giants (51-73, No. 26)
27. Kansas City Royals (51-74, No. 27)
28. Colorado Rockies (50-74, No. 29)
29. Los Angeles Angels (49-76, No. 30)
30. Athletics (49-75, No. 28)