Time is Slipping Away

"Baseball is really two sports - the summer game and the autumn game. One is the leisurely pastime of our national mythology. The other is not so gentile " - Thomas Boswell, Washington Post.

 As the days pass by, they seem to go faster in September than in the previous months, and if you are trailing in your division, time seems to slip away on you even faster. When you watch games in the fall, they always say these games are more meaningful, why, because there are few games left, and if you've squandered April and May and part of June, you are now behind the 8 ball, squarely.

For the White Sox, and Red Sox, they have learned all too well that stumbling out of the gate is not the best route to the pennant. The Phillies and Giants are testament to resiliency as they have overcome large deficits while watching their key opponents begin to lose the gains made throughout the spring and summer. The White Sox are 3 games back of the Twins, so with 24 games left, enough time left to make a last charge, but the Beantowners are all but done, their magic number looking closer in their rear view mirror.

The Padres halted a 10 game slide last night, but are  from from safe territory. If one looks at the key wild card races, the Phils, Giants stake claim, but are within a wisp of their own divisions, and are playing life and death games daily, and if not their division, then the wild card awaits.  The Braves and Padres hold them back, barely this morning, but another slide and they can trade places with their dance partners. And there is only one wild card to go around, so a bad week for the Padres and Braves can spell a September swoon, and all the positive energy sucked out of their year.

While the Reds, Rangers, Rays and Yanks all seem secure, and I would concur, they are all shuffling along at the same pace, no one can seem to be an overwhelming favorite when September ends and the playoffs begin. It may the year that the Yanks get dusted early, and same for the Tampas.  There is some concern for what the Yankee rotation can achieve after Sabathia pitches Game 1. Is Hughes the guy, will perennial playoff hero Andy Pettitte return healthy ? He's been gone almost a month and at 37 , things heal slowly.
The Rays would have loved to spend the month of September resting the back end of their rotation, and might ultimately concede the division in order to protect a shaky 4th and 5th spots. Jeff Niemann and Wade Davis, and James Shields look very beatable and you cannot go far with just Price and Garza.

The Twins though might be set to upset any takers, even with no Justin Morneau at 1st base. They just continue to plug guys in and they succeed.

September games should also be cherished, and I know football and hockey await, but it will be October soon, and the season turns into mini tournaments and then the snow comes, and we have to hibernate until early March. The seasons go very slowly until September, then they just seem to accelerate, and evaporate before my very eyes.

Enjoy September, the last baseball before we sleep.