#MLBVideos: Breaking down the most compelling division races in baseball! | Morning Lineup (MLB Daily Recap)

Breaking down the most compelling division races in baseball! | Morning Lineup (MLB Daily Recap)

[Applause] Got him. Trevor Miguel blows away Drake Baldwin. And the Brewers go perfect on the road trip. 6 and0 from MLB.com. This is the Morning Liner podcast. I’m your host, Will Leachch. Today’s Friday, August 8th, and we had only four games on Thursday night. So, I thought today while I have you, we might focus with trade deadline behind us and the dog days of August ahead of us on looking at each of these six division races. Which ones are already wrapped up? Which ones are tight and scary? Let’s take stock of where we’re standing today while of course still wrapping up everything that happened in baseball on Thursday. Uh, that’s a lot to do and I only have 10 minutes. So, why am I still talking? [Music] And a high fly ball out to right field. Does he have it again? He does. Grand slam Kyle Schwarber. Let’s start with the National League and with the NL East. Now, this was supposed to be the big three team race, but the Braves ruined that by falling on their face this year. So, all due respect to those pluckucky Marlins, it’s once again all down to the Phillies and the Mets. Two teams have been trading the division lead back and forth all season with the gang from Phillies giving themselves a little elbow room in the last week, thanks largely to the Mets current four-game skid that has the Phils up two and a half games right now. There’s plenty of time for that to change though. They still have seven games left against each other, including a monster four game set starting on Labor Day at Citizens Bay Park. There’s a high drive into right field. It is going to be up and over the wall. A home run on the first pitch of the third inning by Christian Yelich, number 21. The other two National League races also feature two hated rivals battling it out. In the NL Central, the Brewers, well, they have the best record in baseball, as of course we all predicted. Overtaking the Cubs, the team thanks to Pete Crow Armstrong, Kyle Tucker, Sega Suzuki, and Michael Bush might have the best offense in baseball. The Cubs have recovered from a recent skid, but it hasn’t really mattered because the Brewers will simply not stop winning. Their current six-game win streak has them four games up. In the NL West, the Padres’s loaded up for bear at the deadline and yet another attempt to take down the Dodgers Juggernaut. You know, it may be working. They’re currently only two games back. Swing and a deep drive right center field. Headed back to the fence. That ball is out of here. Guerrero reaches for 99 elevated and hits out his 18th homer of the season. In the American League East, it is truly amazing how much has changed for the Blue Jays in just a year. Right before the deadline last year, it looked like they might trade away Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bob Bashette, and anything else not nailed down. Now they’re in first place with a rabid fan base starting to wonder if uh maybe this is the year they have been waiting for. But as always, everyone’s amped up in this division. The Red Sox have been the hottest team in baseball for more than a month now. And one of the teams they’ve left in their wake in the division standings are the Yankees, whose deadline acquisition so far have done more harm than good. The Red Sox are currently four back and the Yanks are six and a half back. And honestly though, would you even be that surprised if the Rays had one more run in him? It has been since 2016 that a full season didn’t end with the Astros win the AL West. So, we probably shouldn’t be that surprised they’re in first place. But considering all their rotation injuries and the fact that Yordon Alvarez hasn’t played since May 2nd and of course that Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman don’t play here anymore, it is kind of amazing they’re pulling this off. But the Mariners who brought in a Huhaneo Suarez and Josh Naylor at the deadline and the Rangers are the best rotation RA in baseball are hot on their tails. The Ms are a game and a half back and the Rangers 4 and a half. The biggest division lead in the sport belongs to the Tigers who are six up on the Guardians, but Detroit hasn’t exactly been tearing it up. They even have a losing record since June. Still sure looks like we’re going to see Detroit again this October. So if the season ended today, playoff matchups would be in the NL. The Brewers and Dodgers would get first round buys. And the Mets would play at the Phillies. Yikes. And the Padres’s would play at the Cubs. In the AL, the Blue Jays and the Tigers would get the buys. The Yankees would play at the Astros. And the Mariners would play at Fenway Park against the Red Sox cuz that’s where they play. Unfortunately, the season does not end today. I promise if it did, I would have already said so at the beginning of this show. Point is, it’s getting awfully sweaty around these parts. After the break, we’ll run down Thursday’s four games, including Paul Skins on the Hump or the Mound or whatever your preferred gnomenclature. 100 miles an hour. He’s not messing around. Yep. Good luck with that right there. My MLB.com colleague Mike Petriel wrote a terrific piece on Thursday arguing that for all the hype that inevitably surrounds Paul Skins Pirates right-handed Phenom may actually be underrated. Seriously. As Mike notes in his 46 career starts heading into Thursday night, Skins had a career of 1.99. How good is that? That’s the best erra anyone has put up in their first 46 starts in the live ball era. What he is doing is unprecedented. We have never seen anything like it. And then on Thursday night, he was even better. Ski struck out eight and walked nine, tossing six shutout innings of the Pirates 70 win over the Reds, which means that all-time best Erra RA Petriela was talking about, it just got lower. So, your official skins stats. The RA is now 1.94 in the season, 1.51 over his last 15 starts, and 1.95 for his career. Skins is absolutely unbelievable. And again, just getting started. [Music] There were three games on Thursday that didn’t involve Paul Skates. Let’s find out how they all went with the whipound. Hey Drake. Drake Baldwin went three for five with two homers as the Braves overcame a 6-2 deficit to beat the Marlins 86. Also, Chris Sail through his first VP session since going on the IIL in June. Could be making a rehab start soon. Walkoff alert. Through the right side, base hit. Gino’s on his way home. The throw to the plate. save and the Mariners win. That was Dominic Canzone singling home a Huinio Suarez to give the Mariners 4-3 win over the White Socks in a series sweep. There was some bad news though. Josh Naylor left in the fourth inning with right shoulder discomfort. The M say he’s dayto day. But hey, aren’t we all right? Two rookies shined on like crazy diamonds for the A’s on Thursday and neither of them was Nick Curts who went 0 for three. I guess he should just retire. Jacob Lopez struck out 10 in seven, two/3 scoreless innings and Colby Thomas launched his first career homer as the A’s trounced the National 6 to nothing. Nat’s James Wood went 0 for four in that game. He’s now 6 for 50 with no extra base hits in his last 13 games. [Music] You should probably take a nap shortly after you’re done listening to this podcast because we’ve got an alltimer matchup of Hall of Famers. Chavez Ravine and the Dodgers will send Clayton Kershaw to the mound and the Blue Jays are countering with Max Scherzer. Between them, the two of them have six SI Youngs, four World Series rings, 435 wins, 6,461 strikeouts, and 22,881 batters faced. That’s to say, these two dudes know what they’re doing. The last stand of the Ace tonight at 10:10 p.m. Eastern time on MLB Network and MLB.tv. You can also see baseball history on Saturday by tuning in to MLB Network at 1:15 p.m. Eastern time to watch the Braves and Marlins play a double header. The baseball history part is getting to watch Jyn Pal become the first woman to ever umpire an MLB regular season game. Though, as we all know, if Pal does her job the way we always want umpires to do after the first pitch, we won’t notice her at all. Good luck, Jen. And congratulations. And that’s all for today’s Morning Lineup podcast. Thank you for listening. Please be sure to give us a rating and review and tell everyone you know about this podcast. I, Will Leech, will be back with you on Monday morning, sitting right where I am this very second, a top a throne of lies. I will see you then. Or will I?

A deeper look at some key division races across the league!

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