Body ABCs San Diego Sports with uncle Orie

    Just recently I started to notice something about the two teams that I root for heavily…..they are both in the exact same situation in the playoff hunt.  Don’t get me wrong, I know the personalities and budget of both teams are about as far away from each other as you can get.  The Padres are a small budget team all about smart acquisitions, paying under market value for upward rising talent, national league, big ball park, pitching and bullpen.  Now for the exact opposite, the Yankees are a huuuuuge budget team all about high priced acquisitions, paying way over the market value for decreasing talent, american league, big hitting, no starting pitching and a defeated bullpen.  Despite all of these differences and paths to this point, both teams are in exactly the same spot in the hunt for October, and after tonights games things are really starting to creep me out.  Before I talk about what happened tonight, let’s look at their positions relative to the teams they are chasing and the teams that are chasing them.  The padres are now (after their games tonight) 1.5 games behind the Diamondbacks for the N.L. West lead.  The Yankees are now 2.5 games behind the Red Sox for the A.L. East lead (the two divisions are even exactly opposite of each other: NL=AL, West=East).  The Padres have been surging as of late winning seven in a row (before tonight), which should have put a good amount of space between them and the Philadelphia Phillies.  Not so, the Phillies after winning their 8th game out of the last ten are only 1.5 games behind the Padres for the wild card.  On the other side of the country the Yanks, before tonight, had won 7 of their last 9 games.  You would think that maybe that kind of run late would give them some breathing room in the wild card race….no.  The Tigers have been equally successful, but are a bit farther behind the Yankees at 4.5 games.

Now tonights games dealing with these six teams I have talked about is what really got me freaked out, let us compare the results of tonights games.  The Yankees (2nd place in the AL East), faced the Toronto Blue Jays (3rd place in the AL East) who were fresh off of sweeping a division opponent, tonight in New York.  The Blue Jays were up until the ninth inning when the Yankees came back to tie the game 4-4 and force extra innings.  The game went to the 14th inning when Greg Zaun stepped to the plate to hit a home run.  The Yankees, at home, could not do anything in the bottom of the 14th and lost.  On the other side of the country The Padres (2nd place team in the NL West) played against the Rockies (3rd place team in the NL West)  who were fresh off of sweeping a division opponent, in San Diego.  The Rockies were up until the ninth inning when the Padres came back to tie the game 1-1 and force extra innings.  Then game went to the 14th inning when Brad Hawpe stepped to the plate to hit a home run.  The Padres, at home, could not do anything in the bottom of the 14th and lost.  Weird isn’t it?  It doesn’t stop there.  The team above the Yankees in the AL East, the Red Sox,  played and easily beat a weak division opponent 8-1.  The team above the Padres in the NL West, the Diamondbacks, played and easily beat a weak division opponent 12-3 (I know the Dodgers aren’t the Devil Rays, but it kind of seems like it lately).  The Tigers, the team chasing the Yankees in the wild card played the worst team in the AL, and won.  The Phillies, the team chasing the Padres for the wild card played the worst team in the NL, and won.

Things are basically just running down two parallel sets of train tracks looking at the same scenery.  I hope that their fates do continue down the same path together until they meet in the world series and my head explodes.  I don’t think I could actually imagine what I would do, until lets just hope both teams stay heading in the right direction.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Yankees 1-9 hitters matched on the same team with the Padres pitching =  Jake Peavy gets 32 wins in a year, Chris Young 26, 142-20 record for the Yadres.