Fourth year of four-by-four crowns new champions

The Minnesota Twins had a huge year in the 2019 four-by-four, winning the Northwest Conference and each of their league divisions. 

The baseball four-by-four, in its fourth year in 2019, produced two teams winning their conferences for the first time and three clubs winning league titles for the first time.

The novelty did not extend to the Southwest Conference, where the Houston Astros beat out the Dodgers for the second straight year. In the Northeast, the Cleveland Indians won for the second time in four years after winning it in 2017.

However, in the Northwest, the Minnesota Twins produced a fantastic season. They became the fourth team in the conference to win it in four years, following the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners and Colorado Rockies. The Twins also won both divisions as which the conference functions, becoming the first Northwestern team to win the conference and both divisions.

In the Southeast, the Atlanta Braves broke the Washington Nationals' stranglehold on the title. The Natties tied for the championship in 2016, then won it outright in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, the Braves outlasted Washington by 1½ games. But the conference would play out a little differently as league divisions.

In the East League, for example, the Tampa Bay Rays won the South Division by one-half game and six percentage points over the Braves. For that, the Rays were considered against the North Division champs, the New York Yankees, for the East League championship. Because the Yankees won the head-to-head meetings, 12-7, they were named the league champion.

In the South League's East Division, the Rays and Braves finished all but deadlocked. The Rays got the nod because, ultimately, we go by weighted winning percentage here, but the difference was less than a percentage point. The Braves had a one-game edge, but the percentage went to the Rays. 

As the East Division champs in the South League, the Rays were pitted against the Dodgers, who won the West Division over the Astros. The Rays won the title. They were 2-2 against the Dodgers head-to-head during the year, and they held a 24-22 advantage in runs.

The Southwest Conference's other division, the South Division of the West League, ended with the Astros ahead of the Dodgers by 10½ games. However, the Astros could not prevail as the West League champions, as they lost four of seven meetings during 2019 against the Twins, who won the West League's North Division.

The Twins were not so fortunate in their guise as the West Division champions of the North League. As such, they had to contend for the North League championship against the East Division champion New York Yankees, and that pairing almost never goes well for the Twins. The Yankees swept the Twins, 3-0, in an American League division playoff series, claiming the North League championship.

Indians fall short, Astros claim 2019 AL lineal

The Cleveland Indians, falling from the First Division in 2019, needed to snag a traveling championship to at least qualify for the Super League. But the Houston Astros outpointed them.

The 2019 lineal championship in the American League offered up five contenders, each with such a different story to tell that one longs for a bygone day when decisions about them did not have to be made.

But that day is not today. Now, we need to name a winner, and no such thing emerges from these standings. Fortunately, we've worked up criteria so we won't go to the Christmas holidays every year arguing with ourselves about it.

First, of course, we decide which clubs are entered into the glamorous criteria stat-off that will decide which club will win the Super League berth that goes to the winner. For that decision, we also have criteria, which amount to requiring some combination of championships and defenses adding up to five or more. Five teams made that cut: the New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners.

One interesting team that did not make it: The Toronto Blue Jays, who won the championship three times, tied at the top, but could not produce two defenses to go with them. Until mid-September, the Jays had only one undefended championship to their credit, but they then beat the Yankees two of three in Toronto before defending that title with a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles.

Now, the Jays were two series of championship away from the stat-down, but it was not to be. The Yankees took them down in Yankee Stadium, two-of-three, Sept. 20-22. A week later, as the season ended, it happened that the Rays had taken the title from the Yankees when they arrived in Toronto. The Blue Jays won that series, putting themselves at three titles and one defense. All they needed was one defense to make cut. But the season was over.

Next, we run the five remaining teams through the criteria. The winner in each category gets a point, which is split in cases of ties. Here's how it ended up:

1. Most championships. (New York .5, Tampa Bay .5)

2. Most title defenses per championship. (Cleveland)

3. Best winning percentage in traveling championship games. (Houston)

4. Most victories per time playing for the championship. (Houston 2.22, Cleveland 2.14, )

5. Most games as champion per time playing for the championship. (Cleveland 2.71, Houston 2.44, New York 2.28)

6. Fewest failed challenges. (Houston, Cleveland)

7. Head-to-head record in traveling championship games (Houston).

The last of those, the head-to-head record in traveling championship games, really functions as a tie-breaker. The only teams worth considering are those that are within a point of the top when we get to it. In this case, those teams were the Astros and Indians. The Astros were 3-0 and the Indians were 2-1.

So, it was close, but the decision matters. The Super League goes to the Astros, who didn't need it because they finished in the top half of the 2019 First Division. The Indians, relegated to the Second Division, still could have gone to the 2021 Super League by winning this traveler. Didn't happen.

 

Tri-annual regional leagues crown new champions

Three years in baseball is long enough for clubs to go from way up to way down. The results from the 2018 tri-annual regional leagues show some of the difference three years can make.

Every three years, the major league baseball schedule gives us a chance to work out a favorite toy, an overlay of three regional leagues over the two existing big leagues. It works during those years when the interleague schedule pits the divisions east vs. east, central vs. central and west vs. west.

During those years, we can just follow the schedule to an East League, a Center League and a West League, dividing each of them into north and south divisions. So far, those years have been 2015 and, now, 2018.

A lot can change across the game in three years. In 2015, the New York Mets won the East League and drove to the World Series. In 2018, the Mets were well down, while the Boston Red Sox tore up the eastern competition to the tune of 68-28. In 2018, the Atlanta Braves finished last in the East League South. In 2018, the Braves won that division.

The Red Sox were unstoppable, finishing 13 games ahead of the New York Yankees in the East League's North Division. They also finished 11 games ahead of the Braves in the league standings and, for good measure, they claimed the league title for their 5-1 record against Atlanta during the regular season.

In 2015, the Dodgers overtook the Houston Astros during the second half of the season and claimed this tri-annual West League championship. In 2018, the Astros were strong all the way to the end and finished 2½ games ahead of the Dodgers both across the league and in the South Division.

The North Division witnessed a reversal. The San Francisco Giants, who won the division when it was last played in 2015, finished in the 2018 cellar. The Colorado Rockies, who occupied the division basement in 2015, came back and won it in 2018.

The Rockies hung tough in their interleague "rivalry" games with the Astros, splitting the four games. But the Astros outscored the Rox, 23-11, to claim the league championship.

In 2015, the Chicago Cubs were up-and-coming, and they rose to the Center League championship with a strong playoff run. For 2018, we decided to leave playoffs out of the regional baseball leagues, just to see how it looks. But it wouldn't have helped the Cubs, who still finished 7½ games behind the Cleveland Indians in the Center League.

The Cubs could still have won the league championship after capturing the North Division, but they lost three of four during the year to the Indians. Thus, the Indians were named the 2018 Center League champions after holding off the pesky Pittsburgh Pirates during the regular season.

Rays rally with big September for 2018 AL traveling title

The Tampa Bay Rays aren't saying a lot for their 2018 season, but their strong September run against playoff clubs put them ahead of the rest of the American League in the traveling championship.

The Tampa Bay Rays were going nowhere when the Boston Red Sox dropped into St. Petersburg on Aug. 24 with the American League traveling championship in hand. The Rays were 67-61 overall, which could happen to any club on a steady diet of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.

The Rays were nine games behind the nearest playoff spot and 22½ games out of first place in the American League East. And they somehow salvaged something from their season.

The Rays are the Team of the Year in the AL traveling championship in 2018 for their 20-9 late to a 31-17 record for the season, which included 37 games of title defense. The Rays tied four other teams for the league lead with two championships, but the Rays came out on top in wins games of defense.

The Rays took the prize with a three-game sweep when the Reds Sox went to their dome, then they produced seven straight defenses. Counting the win against the Red Sox, four of the first five series in this title defense came against teams that would be in the playoffs. As they continued their streak, the Rays surpassed the New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians and the Houston Astros on their path to the top of the traveling championship standings.

Red Sox make mark, fly through First Division

The Boston Red Sox won their second First Division title in 2017, setting the record for the largest winning margin in the games behind column. The San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers fell to the bottom.

New to the First Division in 2017, the Boston Red Sox cruised to the title by five games on their partner in promotion, the Cleveland Indians.

The First Division title normally is a pretty tight affair, but the Red Sox ended the campaign with the largest margin in the history of this competition. The Red Sox won the inagural First Division in 2010 by four games on the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays claimed the 2011 top tier title by the same margin over the San Francisco Giants in the two previous largest margins.

The 2010 title was Boston's only previous First Division championship.

The Giants and Texas Rangers fell to the bottom of the First Division in 2017 and are headed to the Second Division in 2018. Coming up from the Second Division to the First Division are the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees.

The Diamondbacks will be in the First Division for the first time in their history. The Yankees were an original First Division team in 2010 but finished last in the tier in 2013 to be demoted and are headed back to the top level for the first time since then. The Yankees won the Second Division in 2017 by one game over the Diamondbacks and the Milwaukee Brewers, who missed the second promotional spot by percentage points.

The Detroit Tigers and New York Mets both won promotion to the Second Division for 2017, but both found the soup a little too thick at the higher level and they're both going back to the Third Division in 2018. In their place are the last two World Champions, the Chicago Cubs (2016) and the Houston Astros (2017), the top two Third Division clubs of 2017.

The fight to stave off relegation to the Fourth Division came down to two losers and one survivor, with the Miami Marlins coming out of it in the preferred position. The Seattle Mariners and Atlanta Braves are going down to the Third Division in 2018.

The Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins, easily the best two Fourth Division teams in 2017, are going up to the Third Division in 2018.

Playoff teams top all divisions as baseball season nears end

It's never happened like this before in eight years of following promotion and relegation across professional baseball. The top two clubs in each division at the end of the regular season are going to the playoffs. Which doesn't mean the titles are decided.

Boston Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale was 7-3 with a 3.04 ERA in 13 starts this season against First Division clubs (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

It isn't all settled, yet, but this much we know: for the first time since we began following promotion and relegation in baseball – and this is the eighth year of it – the top two clubs in each division at the end of the regular season also are going to the playoffs.

And in the First Division, which should expect to have the best clubs, the top four clubs will last into October.

So, it isn't all settled. The championship in each division remains open. There remain some decisions in the bottom of the Third Division as to which clubs will survive and which clubs will be banished to the Fourth Division next year. 

But it's mostly settled.

The championships in each division remain open because, in baseball, we count the postseason. The other sports with promotion and relegation – pro basketball and pro hockey – play reasonably balanced schedules throughout the season, so there's little reason to upset that balance by including the playoffs, while the baseball schedule is so imbalanced that including the playoffs doesn't hurt anything.

So, we look at the First Division and find the Boston Red Sox comfortably on top, as they have been for most of the season. However, these decisions are made by winning percentages, and it remains that the Dodgers, the Cleveland Indians or the Washington Nationals could still pass them. 

The Indians and Red Sox will meet in the American League Championship Series (ALCS) if the Red Sox win their divisional series with the Houston Astros and the Indians win their game against the AL wild card survivor.

The Dodgers and the Nationals will meet in the National League championship Series (NLCS) if the Dodgers survive against the NL wild card and the Nationals can get past the Chicago Cubs.

And any World Series combination involving the Dodgers, Nationals, Red Sox and Indians will count in the First Division.

So, who's the winner? We won't know for a while. And it could be fun to find out. Last year, the First Division came through quite a tangled web in the postseason, with the Dodgers prevailing for the very first time. The top five First Division club all were in the playoffs.

And who are the losers? That, we do know. They are the bottom two clubs – the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants – both of which will be relegated to the Second Division in 2018.

The results from the last week weighed heavily on that decision. The Giants lost two of three at home to the Dodgers Sept. 22-24, enough losses to drive them into the basement. With one more win against the Dodgers, the Giants would be 12-16 instead of 11-17. The difference is huge – the difference between .429 and .393 in winning percentage.

At .429, the Giants would have had a prayer earlier this week, when the Toronto Blue Jays went to Boston. However, the Jays won two of three in that series to finish 22-29, a .431 winning percentage. One more Toronto loss would have sent the Blue Jays down instead of the Rangers. One more Giants win to go with it would have sent the Rangers and the Blue Jays down, saving the Giants.

The Tampa Bay Rays, (22-29, .431) have been sweating all of this out ever since losing two of three at home against the Red Sox Sept. 15-17 to end their First Division schedule. But they survived, which would not be the case if the Giants had swept the Dodgers and the Jays had swept the Sox. The Rays remain the longest continuous member of the First Division actively and they will become the longest continuing member all-time.

The Rays won promotion to the First Division for the 2011 season and have stayed there ever since. So, the 2018 season will be Tampa Bay's eighth straight in the top tier. However, they barely hung on this time.

The St. Louis Cardinals had been the record holder, playing for seven straight years in the First Division, starting as a charter member of the top tier in 2010 and continuing until they were relegated to the Second Division for the 2017 season, giving them seven straight seasons at the highest level. 

The championship in the Second Division this year remains up for grabs. The New York Yankees (17-9, .653) and the Arizona Diamondbacks (20-12, .625) are right at each other on top, even in the games column and with the Yankees in the percentage points lead. Conceivably, though it isn't likely, the Yankees and Diamondbacks could meet in the World Series.

First, though, the Diamondbacks have work in the Second Division this weekend against the Kansas City Royals. They play three games this weekend in Kansas City. Just down the standings, the Cardinals play three at home this weekend against the Milwaukee Brewers. If the Cardinals or Brewers can sweep, then there remains a ray of hope for that club to back into a promotion, depending on what happens with the Diamondbacks against Kansas City and, possibly, the Yankees.

At the bottom of the Second Division, the Royals settled the matter by winning two of three at home this week against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers needed to win two against Kansas City and they needed the Royals to lose three against Arizona in order to escape relegation.  The best Detroit can hope for now is that an Arizona sweep of Kansas City brings the Tigers and Royals both in at 13-20, but the Royals hold the tiebreaker by winning 11 of 18 between them this season. So, the Tigers are going down to the Third Division, as are the New York Mets.

Coming up to the Second Division from the Third Division, we already know, are the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs. Again, those clubs could meet in the World Series to change the order between them, though it isn't likely. The Astros are the first-place club by percentage points.

The lower half of the Third Division is where it gets interesting. The Chicago White Sox ensured they won't be relegated with a 5-4 win against the Angels Thursday night. So, it's between the Seattle Mariners, the Miami Marlins and the Atlanta Braves. Two of those club are going down to the Fourth Division. The decision will come during the weekend.

The Braves and Marlins are playing a four-game series in Miami. The Marlins won the opener, 7-1, Thursday night. The Mariners are playing three at home against the Angels. The Mariners, Marlins and Braves all remain so close at the bottom that anything could still happen between them.

In the Fourth Division, we have two more playoff teams on top – the Colorado Rockies and the Minnesota Twins. Each club is the last in its league to enter the playoffs as the second wild card.

Pray for rain: Reds take baseball traveler (finally) to NL

The Cincinnati Reds captured the continental baseball traveling championship in an unlikely way, by a combination of Billy Hamilton's mad dash from first base one day, and a rain out the next. Now, the Reds are locked in a split series with the Philadelphia Phillies with the rubber game coming on Sunday.

Billy Hamilton scored from first base on a ninth-inning single to left field on May 24, carrying the Cincinnati Reds to baseball's continental traveling championship (Public domain image).

It took a rain out, perhaps (we'll never really know), but the traveling championship in baseball finally crossed over to the National League last week for the first time since the middle of last August.

It happened when the Cincinnati Reds beat the Cleveland Indians in what ended up as a one-game series in Cleveland.

After the Indians won the championship last weekend against the Houston Astros by sweeping three on the road, the schedule set them up for their interleague series, two of them, against the Reds this week.

The first, a two-gamer in Cincinnati, went down in a split. Because the continental traveler doesn't change hands in a split series, the Indians kept it for the return series between the two clubs in Cleveland.

So, they commenced in Cleveland on May 24 for the second two-game series, and the Reds prevailed in the first game, 4-3, when Billy Hamilton scored the winning run all the way from first base on a single to left field in the ninth inning.

The next day, May 25, rain. The game was postponed until July. Of course, the traveling championship isn't postponed. It goes to whichever team leads the series, if that's the end of it.

So, the Reds finally took the traveling championship on their fourth try this season, and on the sixth try for the National League.

This weekend, the Reds took the prize to Philadelphia, where they have split their first two games with the Philadelphia Phillies entering the games of May 28. So, the continental traveler stays in the National League for at least a couple of more games, whichever teams leaves Citizen's Bank Park with it Sunday afternoon.

But maybe for not much longer than that. The Reds will go from Philadelphia to Toronto for three against the Toronto Blue Jays, an American League club. Could be that the AL will snatch it right back. Or maybe not. The Phillies will open a series on the road Monday against the Miami Marlins.

Will the NL ever regain the traveling championship?

So far, the National League is zero-for-four this season in its efforts to snatch the continental traveling baseball championship from the American League, which took over the championship last August.

Yan Gomes drove in five runs Sunday for the Cleveland Indians, who took baseball's continental traveling championship from the Houston Astros (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

Six weeks into the baseball season, the traveling championship across the game has been stubbornly unwilling to cross into the National League.

The same could be said for the final six weeks of the 2016 season. Which is to say that the traveler hasn't been in the senior circuit since last Aug. 12-14, when the San Francisco Giants lost two of three to the Baltimore Orioles in San Francisco.

No other NL team even took a crack at it for the rest of 2016. But that hasn't been the case this year.

First, the Orioles took the title to Cincinnati during their long April run and won two of three from the Cincinnati Reds to hold it. After the Yankees took the championship from the Orioles by winning two of three at home this April 28-30, the Orioles put it on the line at Wrigley Field against the defending World Championship Chicago Cubs the next weekend. It wasn't even close. The Cubs swept three games.

Next, the Yankees went to Cincinnati and gave the Reds another shot. Though the Yankees and Reds split that series, the Yankees kept it because the continental champion holds the title in case of a tied series.

Right after the Houston Astros prevailed against the Yankees, they went to Miami to give another National League club a try. It ended with a Astros sweep.

Now, another opportunity presents itself for the National League. The Cleveland Indians took the traveling championship from the Astros by sweeping three in Houston during the weekend.

So, the Indians now will put the title up against the Reds this week in two separate two-game series, back-to-back. The first series will open in Cincinnati Monday night.

While the traveling championship and the National League can't get together, another stubborn trend for the continental traveler has ended. 

The Astros broke a five-year run without the title, the longest ever for any team, when they won three of four from the New York Yankees in New York last weekend. And they even defended it once, a first, by sweeping the Miami Marlins on the road in their next series.

The Astros held the traveling championship only one other time in history, claiming it with a two-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers at home May 16-17, 2012. Five years is a long time in baseball these days. The Astros were a National League club in 2012.

That Astros club finished the year 55-107, the second of three consecutive Houston clubs that failed to win 60 games. The heroes of that title for the Astros were Carlos Lee, who went three for four with two runs, three RBI and a homer in an 8-3 win on May 16, and J.A. Happ, who pitched six shutout innings in a 4-0 win the next day.

The Astros failed to defend that title, immediately losing two of three at home to the Texas Rangers.

Being fair to the Astros, the traveling title hasn't often crossed their path in the last five years. In fact, they never again played for it until Aug. 3-5, 2015, when they lost three straight on the road to the Rangers.

The Astros also failed in their only crack at the prize last season, losing three of four to the Rangers in Arlington June 6-9.

Following are the standings and results in the national traveler through May 21.

Bosox, Indians take early First Division lead

The Boston Red Sox and the Cleveland Indians, two new First Division clubs, are the early leaders. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Phillies went off to a fast start in the Third Division.

With Freddy Galvis (13) at shortstop, the Philadelphia Phillies won their first six games in the Third Division (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

We shouldn't too surprised by the early going in the First Division. The two new teams are on top.

It's only the first week of May, of course. But history says new promotions thrive in the First Division. And recent champions flounder.

The Cleveland Indians (3-0) and the Boston Red Sox (5-2), newly promoted, are the early leaders. The San Francisco Giants (4-3) are right behind after winning two of three this week from the Dodgers (3-4) in Los Angeles.

The Washington Nationals, the only team yet to debut in the First Division, play their first game within the tier on May 29 in San Francisco. That will begin a run of nine First Division games in two weeks for the Nats.

The Second Division still awaits participation from half of its clubs. The New York Yankees have the early lead, thanks to a three-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals. But the Cardinals will have plenty of chances to catch up because this level includes two other National League Central clubs, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

By contrast, the Third Division has seen heavy participation. The Philadelphia Phillies took the early lead, winning their first six games at this level before visiting Chicago and losing two games so far this week against the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs, of course, won the World Series last year, but they still couldn't escape the Third Division, despite a 26-13 showing at this level. As it happened, the Detroit Tigers (35-16) and the New York Mets (28-13), surpassed the Cubs for promotion with their over-whelming performances.

At the bottom of this group, the Seattle Mariners already have cause for concern, losing 10 of their first 15 games. 

In the Fourth Division, it's still very early. The team to watch is the Baltimore Orioles, who were knocked back into this group as a result of the 2014 playoffs and haven't been able to escape. 

Yankees win second Joe Cronin League title

The New York Yankees won nothing else in 2016, but they captured the Joe Cronin League championship by three games over two playoff-bound American League clubs.

The New York Yankees became the first team to win the Joe Cronin League twice in its seven-year history.

The Yankees finished 37-22, three games ahead of the defending champion Texas Rangers (40-31).

The Yankees won their only other Joe Cronin League title in 2011.

The Houston Astros and the Tampa Bay Rays, who both were expanded into the league in 2013, are the only teams to have never won it.

Previous seasons:

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

Playoff push takes Dodgers to First Division title

The Dodgers won their first title in the First Division, rallying past the Washington Nationals during the playoffs to break open a five-way race.

Clayton Kershaw finished off the Washington Nationals in the playoffs, nailing down the First Division championship for the Dodgers (Tony the Tiger/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license).

The Dodgers, who have spent as much time in the First Division as anyone, finally won the premier league crown in 2016. Playoff results, which are included in our baseball divisions, dramatically turned the race for the Dodgers.

The Texas Rangers actually led the top division at the end of the regular season, 14-9 with a winning percentage of .609, one-half game ahead of the second-place Dodgers at 21-17 and .553. But the post season included two series in the divisional round pitting First Division performers. The Dodgers were to play the Washington Nationals, while the Rangers were to face the Toronto Blue Jays. All four of those clubs, plus the San Francisco Giants remained in the championship hunt during the postseason.

The Giants also were in the playoffs, going against the Chicago Cubs in the first round. If the Giants and Dodgers had both won in the first round, they would have met in the National League Championship Series, possibly with the First Division on the line.

Entering the first round playoff games of Oct. 11, the picture boiled down, just a little. The Rangers had taken themselves out of contention by losing in three straight against Toronto. The Dodgers and Giants both were down, two games to one, in the playoffs. So, the Giants (21-18, .538), Dodgers (22-19, .537), Blue Jays (22-19, .537) and Nationals (14-12, .538) all were rather stuck together.

October 11 was the day of Game Four both for the Giants/Cubs and the Dodgers/Nationals. But the Giants lost their Game Four to the Cubs, thus losing the series in as many games and missing their chance to face the Dodgers in the next round. Meanwhile, the Dodgers took a 5-2 lead in their Game Four against the Nationals, who then tied it with three runs in the top of the seventh inning. Then the Dodgers regained the lead with Chase Utley's base hit to drive in Andrew Toles in the bottom of the eighth, and Kenley Jansen saved the ninth for a 6-5 Dodgers win.

Now, it came down to Game Five for the Dodgers and Nationals. The Dodgers were 23-19 and .547, first place, but barely ahead of the Giants (21-18, .538) and the Blue Jays (22-19, .537). The Nationals were 14-13 now, falling out of the race even if they were to win Game Five. With a loss, the Dodgers would have finished in a tie with Toronto and the Giants in the games back column, with the Giants leading by one percentage point, the slimmest of margins for the First Division title.

But the Dodgers wiped out that controversy with their 4-3 Game Five win against the Nationals at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers brought in Clayton Kershaw in a save situation, and, somehow, the Nationals resorted to Wilmer Difo as their two-out hitter with the tying run at second base in the top of the ninth. Kershaw struck out Difo in three pitches, giving the Dodgers, at 24-19 and .538, the undisputed First Division lead.

It remained that the Dodgers and Blue Jays could have met in the World Series with the First Division on the line between those two clubs. But neither club made it that far, the Dodgers falling to the Cubs in the National League Championship Series and the Jays losing to the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series.

So, the 2016 standings in the top two divisions divisions ended like this:

We forewarn the Dodgers, though, that defending the First Division championship is a perilous station. For the last four years, a team defending the title fell to the relegation zone the very next year and was banished to the next level down.

In 2016, that team was the St. Louis Cardinals, the last standing charter member of the First Division in 2010 without since then being relegated. But once the Cardinals claimed their first share of a First Division title in a split with the Tampa Bay Rays and San Francisco Giants in 2015, they plummeted to 9-18 in 2016, last place in the top tier. They will be joined in relegation by the Kansas City Royals, who had just been promoted to the high level for 2016.

With the Cardinals now gone, Tampa Bay is the longest running member of the First Division, winning promotion to the top division in 2011 and staying there since. For all of their larger apparent troubles, the Rays hang tough every year against this high level of competition. Even in 2016, when they didn't contend, they still finished 19-20.

In fact, the Rays are the last team to win the First Division outright without being relegated the next season. They entered league and won it in 2011, then finished within a game of the top in each of the next two seasons before claiming a share of the 2015 title.

The New York Yankees won a First Division title in 2012 and earned relegation a year later. The same happened with the Texas Rangers, who won it in 2013, and the Angels, who won it in 2014 before it happened to the 2015 co-champion Cardinals in 2016.

Through the regular season, the Cleveland Indians were an afterthought in the Second Division – fifth place 13-10 and .565, well behind the first-place Boston Red Sox at 25-14 and .641. The second promotional position was held by the Pittsburgh Pirates (20-15, .571), barely over the Milwaukee Brewers and the Yankees, both 20-16 and .556.

But the Indians had an opportunity that the Pirates, Brewers and Yankees did not have – a divisional playoff series against the Red Sox. Winning three straight against the Red Sox, the Indians hoisted themselves through the standings, all the way up to the winning percentage portion of the Second Division title at 16-10 and .615, but still behind the Red Sox (25-17, .595 ) in the games column.

A key performer for the Indians, reliever Andrew Miller, notched the victory in Game One, then pitched two key shutout innings in Cleveland's clinching 4-3 win in Game 3 against the Boston Red Sox (Artura Pardavila III/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

Thus, the Indians and Red Sox are the two clubs being promoted to the First Division in 2017, replacing the Royals and Cardinals, who will come down from the First Division to the Second Division. At the bottom of the Second Division, the Angels and Atlanta Braves appear joined at the hip in their decline. Both were freshly demoted to the Second Division in 2016, and both are being demoted again, to the Third Division, in 2017.

The Detroit Tigers, New York Mets and Chicago Cubs dominated the Third Division in 2016. Each had a Third Division patsy within its regular big league division, and each took advantage. The Tigers were 15-4 against the Minnesota Twins, the Cubs were 15-4 against the Cincinnati Reds, and the Mets were 12-7 against the Philadelphia Phillies.

By being just a nudge better, nine winning percentage points, the Phillies staved off the Twins and averted relegation. The Reds, who finished in last place, are to be relegated, with the Twins, to the Fourth Division in 2017. The Twins, a charter First Division club in 2010, now are headed to the bottom level.

On the top of this heap, the Tigers were unstoppable. They roughed up the Twins pretty good, but they also were 20-12 against their other Third Division opponents and notched winning records against every such team that they played. At 35-16 and .686, the Tigers needed every bit of it to avoid sharing the division championship with the Mets and Cubs.

The Mets were the second-place team, 28-13 and .683. The Tigers, playing so many more games, still won the games column by two, but barely finished ahead by percentage. The Cubs were right there, too, 26-13 and .667. However, the Mets won five of their seven games against the Cubs to secure Second Division promotion with the Tigers in 2017.

Coming down from the Second Division and replacing the promoted Tigers and Mets in the Third Division are the Angels and Braves. Neither team seems likely to become a noise maker in the Third Division.

The more likely Third Division noise makers figure to be the teams coming up from the Fourth Division, the Houston Astros and the Miami Marlins. The Astros became a strong club across big league baseball in 2015, but only now have they been able to escape from the Fourth Division dungeon, a house of horrors they first entered in 2011.

The Fourth Division is loathe to give up good teams that fall into its clutches. The Baltimore Orioles fell to the Fourth Division in 2015. Last year, in their second attempt to escape, they finished at the bottom of this lowest division for the second straight time.

Cubs deny Tribe Selig East three-peat

The Cleveland Indians made a nice bid for their third consecutive Bud Selig East championship, but no one was going to beat the Cubs, who won two-thirds of their games after July.

The Cleveland Indians fell short in their bid for an unprecedented three-peat in the Bud Selig East, overtaken by the hard-charging Chicago Cubs in the final two months of the season.

A tight race at midseason became a Cubs romp as the Chicagoans went 26-13 down the stretch to prevail by five games.

On July 31, The Cubs, Indians, New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox all were within 1½ games of the league lead. But while the Indians (20-15 in the last two months) and the Yankees (17-13) won going down the backside, neither could keep up with the Cubs.

The Cubs became the fourth club to win the Bud Selig East in the league's six-year history. The Yankees and Indians each have won twice and the White Sox have won it once.

Indians bid for Selig East threepeat

One might protest that the Bud Selig East is an arbitary sampling of teams and that its champion is rather a fluke because of it. But how does that differ from how the Major League Baseball regular season is structured to decide which clubs go to the playoffs?

Terry Francona, the most successful manager in the history of the Bud Selig East, is trying to pilot the Cleveland Indians to their third straight championship (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

To begin, we note that the Cleveland Indians, as poorly as they've gone this season, still are making a strong bid to win the Bud Selig East for the third consecutive year.

They happened to lose a tough one Monday afternoon to the Chicago Cubs, who prevailed on a homer by Kris Bryant in the bottom of the ninth for a 2-1 win at Wrigley Field. The Cubs now are 44-31 in the Bud Selig East, with the Indians 3½ games down at 38-32.

Two questions might immediately arise. Both are reasonable. The first would be, "So, what?" The second would be, "In what kind of a league are the Cleveland Indians 38-32?" In the real American League standings, the Indians began Tuesday's games 58-66. That means they are really terrible, 20-34, playing outside of the Bud Selig East.

The Bud Selig East is just a personal thing for the writer, who is happy to share it with the baseball public, though with no expectation that the baseball public wants it. The short explanation of the Bud Selig East is that it's half of a mash-up of the Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney Leagues. The long explanation is here. That's the answer to "So, what?" A shrug.

The second question is more interesting, because it says something about how the competitive integrity of the Major League Baseball (MLB) schedule has been sacrificed since the start of interleague play back in 1997.

Quickly, Indians are 38-32 in the Bud Selig East because that's their record against opponents in the Joe Cronin and Chub Feeney Leagues, which accounts for 15 other clubs across the Major Leagues. Is it not interesting that if you just consider the Indians against a particular cross-section that includes half of the Major League clubs, they're actually pretty good?

If you have any inclination to say that the Indians' work against the unbalanced selection of clubs in its Bud Selig East record is not representative of what the Indians are, we agree. But if we agree on that, we should also agree that the MLB schedule raises the same concerns, perhaps to an even greater degree, and certainly to a more serious degree.

Ever since interleague play began, we have to live with teams fighting for playoff entry on the basis of different schedules, which is inherently unfair and which seriously damages the integrity of that competition. If your interleague opponents are poor and the team against which you are jockeying for a wildcard berth plays good interleague opponents, that is an advantage for your side.

It would seem that about 99.9944 percent of baseball fans don't think it's anything to be concerned about. And if the fans and media don't see a problem, then the MLB offices definitely won't see a problem. Over here, though, we think it's a problem.

Take a look, for example, at the race for the second wildcard in the American League. Basically, it's a scrum of .500ish clubs fighting for survival. But the American League East clubs (the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays) in that mix are at a huge advantage against the AL West clubs (the Angels and Texas Rangers) and the AL Central club (the Minnesota Twins) who are in that fight.

The interleague schedule is set up this year so the eastern divisions play each other, as do the central divisions and the western divisions. So, if you're in the AL East, you're playing interleague against three dreadful clubs (the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Miami Marlins), a talented club that plays messy baseball (the Washington Nationals) and an underwhelming club with young and talented pitching (the New York Mets).

Three of the six worst winning percentages across MLB are in the NL East, the Nats struggle to stay even and the Mets have only recently advanced from having the worst record among the division leaders. All of that is rather an achievement when one considers that the NL East clubs play 56 percent of their games against each other.

There's not a truly good club in that whole NL East mix, and those are the clubs against whom the AL East clubs are bidding for wins and losses towards a playoff berth that will be decided by a game or two.

The Twins are playing their interleague games against two poor clubs (the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers), as well as an awesome and pretty lucky club in the St. Louis Cardinals, a strong club in the Pittsburgh Pirates and a club on its way to being strong in the Chicago Cubs. If you're the Twins, wouldn't you rather play the National League clubs who the Rays and Orioles are playing? Wouldn't you like your chances better that way?

The Angels and Rangers are playing interleague against the NL West, which includes one bad club (the Colorado Rockies), two decent clubs (the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres) and two good clubs in the Dodgers (who aren't even as good as they should be) and the Giants (who have a way of getting better in the Fall).

So, if you're an AL East club, you get three interleague patsies. If you're in the AL Central, you get two interleague patsies, and you only get one if you're in the AL West.

Entering Tuesday's games, the contenders for the second AL wildcard were the Rangers (64-59), Angels (63-61), Twins (63-61), Orioles (62-62) and Rays (62-62). And here are their interleague records: Rangers (9-8), Angels (7-10), Twins (8-12), Rays (11-6) and Orioles (9-8).

The Orioles and, especially, the Rays are in this thing and might prevail because they have a much easier path than the Twins, Angels or Rangers. And that simply is not in the spirit of how playoff berths should be decided. Sure, the Twins could have won another game or two against the Reds and Brewers, and so forth, but the point is that the Twins, along with the Angels and Rangers, have a much tougher assignment overall to win 90 games, or whatever that number becomes to win a playoff berth.

A little further down the AL wildcard standings, we find the Detroit Tigers (59-65), Chicago White Sox (58-65) and the Indians (58-66). How many of these clubs would be matching the Rays and Orioles at .500 if they played the Braves, Phillies and Marlins instead of the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs? Could be all of them.

One might suppose that the Twins are at an advantage against the Rays and Orioles because they play a lot of games in the AL Central against the Tigers, White Sox and Indians. But as the point just made shows, that's somewhat begging the question. It is often enough true, though, that the team in a weaker division has an edge for wildcard entry over a team from a stronger division. And that always looms as a possibility in baseball wildcard races, which is one reason why, in this corner, we do not like wildcards at all.

The races for division championships make a little more sense. At least all the teams within a division play all the same clubs. But MLB has even messed that up.

In the AL East, for example, the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays were tied on top at 69-55 before Tuesday's games. But the Yankees play six times against the Mets and three times against the Braves this year, while the Jays play six against the Braves and three against the Mets. And if the Jays win the division by a game and kick the Yankees down to a wildcard, we're supposed to think that didn't make a difference.

But we do think it makes a difference. It's only sensible to think it makes a difference. Hence, the contrivances of the First Division, the Bud Selig East and all of the other competitions created on this site. If MLB believes its regular season competition with all these imbalances is legitimate, then nothing we can dream up with these imbalances is any less legitimate on that basis.

Many years ago, your friendly Major Leagues of professional baseball believed that a championship season called for a balanced schedule, at least an arrangement in which the playoff contenders would play the same schedule towards determining who went to the playoffs.

Seems fair. If one team plays an easier schedule than another, then why should the team prevailing against the easier schedule take a playoff berth from the team that was slightly less successful against a slightly tougher slate of games?

It's an important point, which, like so many others, has been lost by Major League Baseball, in part because the media and the fans don't insist on it. But it is no less important for that.

Way back in time, before expansion, each of the Major Leagues had eight clubs. Each club within a league played each of the other clubs 22 times, adding up to a 154-game schedule.

In 1961 (in the American League) and 1962 (National League), we saw expansions to 10 clubs in each league, and they maintained the principle of balance by having each club play every other club in its league 18 times for a 162-game schedule.

In 1969, each league added two clubs and divided into two divisions. As the division winners were to meet in the playoffs, those teams played out schedules in which each team played every other team within its division 18 times and played every club in the other division 12 times each. The team that you beat (or that beat you) for the division title still played the same schedule that you played.

Even when the American League added two more clubs in 1977, one for each division, the league tried to maintain balance as closely as possible, scheduling each club 15 times against each club in its own division and 10 or 11 times against each of the clubs in the other division.

But the clubs in the west complained that they were losing home gates against the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. In those days, before the business began to figure out television, the team in Minneapolis or Kansas City really suffered that lost gate against the Yankees. So, the AL went away from scheduling heavily within divisions and balanced its schedule as much as possible across the league, so each AL team played every club within its division 13 times and every club in the other division 12 times.

Balance still ruled. And when the National League expanded to 14 clubs in 1993, it followed that 13 and 12 format.

Following the 1994-5 player's strike, MLB began making all sorts of marketplace compromises, including the fool's gold of interleague play and the wildcards, which actually were to begin in 1994 but were postponed by the strike.

Now, we have each club in the Major Leagues trying to stuff 19 different opponents into a 162-game schedule. Each ends up playing every team in their own divisions 19 times each, every other club across its league six or seven times each, then each of five interleague opponents three, four or six times each. It's a ghastly concoction.

So, we can agree that the Bud Selig East and others like it on these pages smack of being arbitrary and accidental. But they are no more arbitrary and accidental than the playoff races across the Major Leagues, nor are they any more of a departure from the balanced structures that once made the playoff race an even fight. And the Major Leagues shouldn't be especially proud about that.

Bud Selig League standings through August 23

Bud Selig West W     L      Pct.     GB St. Louis 48 27 .640 — Texas 35 28 .556 7 San Diego 31 28 .525 9 DODGERS 28 27 .509 10 Minnesota 27 26 .509 10 ANGELS 24 29 .453 13 Milwaukee 29 37 .439 14½ Houston 25 31 .446 13½

Bud Selig East W     L      Pct.     GB Chicago (NL) 44 31 .587 — New York (AL) 30   24 .556 3½ Cleveland 38 32 .543 3½ Chicago (AL) 33 34 .493 7 Tampa Bay 27 29 .482 7½ New York (NL) 26 29 .473 8½ Miami 21 34 .382 13 Cincinnati 23 44 .343 17

Bosox welcome Dombrowski with Aaron

The Henry Aaron Award and David Dombrowski arrived in Boston right at the same. With Dombrowski taking over as President of Baseball Operations for the Red Sox, the hub club has popped up with enough unlikely heroics to mount a second Aaron defense, and against the Kansas City Royals, even.

New Boston Red Sox baseball chief David Dombrowski doesn't have to like everything he's seeing from his club this week, but he has to be liking the wins (Cathleen Carrigan/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license). 

As it happens, the Boston Red Sox began a defense of the Henry Aaron Award on Monday, and David Dombrowski arrived in Boston a day later. 

Not to say that prosperity comes in pairs, but the Red Sox made their first successful defense of the Aaron right as Dombrowski took the reigns as their President of Baseball Operations. Coincidence? You decide. (Hint: it is.)

Coincidence or not, it's still the high point of a disappointing Red Sox season. By the accounts, Ben Cherrington did everything as well as he could and as right as he could as the club's general manager before stepping down right after the Dombrowski hire. However, bringing Hanley Ramirez as the left fielder and Pablo Sandoval as the third baseman to a team playing half of its games in Fenway Park looked like a bad fit on paper, and it looks even worse on the field.

Even worse than that, though, is the Red Sox pitching staff. The Red Sox have one pitcher on the roster right now with any kind of achievement this season, reliever Koji Uehara. As a staff, the Red Sox entered Friday's games with a 4.59 ERA, nearly two-thirds of a run higher than the American League ERA of 3.94.

In their 121 games entering Friday, the Red Sox allowed 592 runs. If they had just a league average pitching staff/defense, they would have allowed 508 runs in those games and the team's Pythagorean expectation would be 63-58 instead of 56-65 (the Red Sox actually were 55-66). At 63-58, the Red Sox would be tied with the Angels for the second American League wildcard.

So, pitching has killed the Red Sox, and we can be sure that having Sandoval and Ramirez defend the left side against the opposing right-handed lineups recommended by Fenway Park hasn't helped. 

And it might even get worse for the Red Sox. Now, they don't have Clay Buchholz for the rest of the year, and he was pretty good (7-7, 3.26 ERA in 18 starts).

It's anybody's guess what Dombrowski will do now with the Red Sox, though upgrades for the pitching and defense are pretty clear priorities. Then again, it's anybody's guess why Detroit Tigers owner Mike Illitch let Dombrowski go less than three weeks ago, making Dombrowski available to the Red Sox. 

The Tigers won the American League Central four consecutive times before this season. This year, three circumstances overtook them. 

First, the Kansas City Royals. Second, the Tigers, in effect, and by various causes, lost big-time starting pitchers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander this year, and replaced them with only one, David Price, acquired at the trade deadline last year. So, the Tigers needed to replace a 10-games-over-.500 starting pitcher. If all you've got in replacement is a 10-games-under-.500 pitcher, that's costing your club 20 games. If all you've got is a .500 pitcher, that's still 10 games. So (and third), the Tigers were looking for that top pitcher at the trade deadline and, when they saw what the Royals gave for Johnny Cueto, they knew they couldn't play in that market.

Dombrowski then recommended the sensible course to Illitch. Punt. You can't expect to score a touchdown every time you have the ball. When you have that bad year, you have to salvage it. And the Tigers did, particularly in their subsequent trade of Price to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Everyone knows Illitch wants to win the World Series before he dies, and he's 86, so he doesn't have forever. But it does seem that showing Dombrowski the door for this one poor season is a tad impulsive. Illitch might complain that when you look at the Royals doing what they're doing with a $113.6 million payroll, then the Tigers have plenty enough resources to win with their payroll of $173.8 million. But would an 86-year-old Illitch put up with the losing Kansas City has endured to develop its less expensive contender?

Anyway, Dombrowski never particularly had to worry about money with the Tigers, and that's not going to be a problem for him in Boston, either. 

Right now, his problem is pitching. And left-side defense.

But those problems haven't slowed the Red Sox on this present run with the Henry Aaron Award, which began when they took two-of-three from the Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park Aug. 14-16 to capture the prize.

The Red Sox put the Aaron on the line against the visiting Cleveland Indians in a three-game set that started Monday with a 8-2 loss. The next day, though, the Red Sox introduced Dombrowski, the immortals Mookie Betts, Brock Holt and Blake Swihart each drove in two or more runs and Eduardo Rodriguez pitched an uncharacteristic good game (eight innings, one run) in a 9-1 victory. Then, the Red Sox won the rubber game on Wednesday, 6-4. The key was a four-run fourth inning featuring a three-run homer by Jackie Bradley, Jr., and a solo blast by Ryan Hanigan.

If you don't see the Red Sox' future in all of those names, you're probably not alone. Then again, they were playing the Indians.

But now the Red Sox have won the first two of a four-game series in Fenway against the Royals, enough to defend it once again.

Thursday, the Red Sox took the opener from the Royals, 4-1. The six, seven and eight hitters (Travis Shaw, Hanigan and Bradley) drove in all the runs and Lefty Wade Miley horsed up with 7 1/3 innings, allowing only one run. 

The Red Sox won again Friday, 7-2, roughing up Cueto with 13 hits in six innings. The bottom four Red Sox hitters (Rusney Castillo, Shaw, Swihart and Josh Rutledge) scored all the runs and drove in four of them.

In the last two days, then, the Red Sox won when their mediocre pitchers put up good games and their low-order hitters beat up Corey Kluber and Cueto. Probably not the formula the Red Sox can count upon long-term, but it's good for now, and it is bringing the Red Sox their best moments of this season.

Assuming the Red Sox hang on in this title defense, that will bring them up to two defenses and assure them of more than 10 games holding the title.

Can they make a run with it and challenge the Dodgers on top of the standings?

At this point, they've got nothing better to do.

Henry Aaron Award
Standings through games of August 21
	W	L	P	T	G	D	A
DODGERS	15	10	8	1	22	6	7
San Francisco	15	15	8	1	17	4	6
ANGELS	14	5	6	1	16	4	5
Texas	12	10	7	2	16	3	5
San Diego	10	7	5	1	13	3	4
Boston	9	9	6	2	8	1	2
Baltimore	7	6	4	1	7	1	1
Pittsburgh	6	3	3	1	6	1	2
Seattle	7	6	4	1	6	1	2
Milwaukee	5	7	4	1	6	1	2
Kansas City	5	4	4	1	5	1	2
Washington	2	2	1	0	0	0	0
Colorado	6	10	5	0	0	0	0
Arizona	2	7	3	0	0	0	0
New York (AL)	2	2	1	0	0	0	0
Chicago (NL)	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Miami	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Minnesota	1	2	1	0	0	0	0
Atlanta	3	4	2	0	0	0	0
Cleveland	1	5	2	0	0	0	0
Houston	0	3	1	0	0	0	0

Numbers in bold indicate league leaders.

W — Wins. L — Losses. P — Times played for title. T — Titles won. G — Number of games that team held title after winning it. D — Title defenses. A — Title defense attempts. Standings are given in order of games holding the title.

2015 Henry Aaron Award results 
(There is no tiebreaker for the Aaron. The champion keeps it unless the challenger wins outright. However, the runs are given for series ending in ties).

San Francisco 2, Arizona 1 — April 6-8 at Arizona.
San Diego 3, San Francisco 1 — April 10-12 at San Diego.
San Diego 2, Arizona 1 — April 13-15 at San Diego.
San Diego 2, Chicago (NL) 1 — April 17-19 at Chicago.
San Diego 2, Colorado 2 — April 20-23 at Denver (San Diego, 26-16).
DODGERS 2, San Diego 1 — April 24-26 at San Diego.
DODGERS 2, San Francisco 1 — April 27-29 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 3, Arizona 0 — May 1-3 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 2, Milwaukee 2 — May 4-7 at Milwaukee (DODGERS, 28-16).
DODGERS 2, Colorado 0 — May 8-10 at Colorado.
DODGERS 2, Miami 1 — May 11-13 at Los Angeles.
DODGERS 2, Colorado 2 — May 14-17 (Colorado, 16-12).
San Francisco 3, DODGERS 0 — May 19-21 at San Francisco.
San Francisco 2, Colorado 2 — May 22-24 at Denver (Colorado, 31-26).
San Francisco 3, Milwaukee 0 — May 25-27 at Milwaukee.
San Francisco 2, Atlanta 2 — May 28-31 at San Francisco (Atlanta, 17-16).
Pittsburgh 3, San Francisco 0 — June 1-3 at San Francisco.
Pittsburgh 2, Atlanta 1 — June 5-7 at Atlanta.
Milwaukee 2, Pittsburgh 1 — June 8-10 at Pittsburgh.
Milwaukee 2, Washington 2 — June 11-14 at Milwaukee (Washington, 20-16).
Kansas City 2, Milwaukee 0 — June 15-16 at Milwaukee.
Kansas City 2, Milwaukee 0 — June 17-18 at Kansas City.
Boston 2, Kansas City 1 — June 19-21 at Kansas City.
Baltimore 2, Boston 1 — June 23-25 at Boston.
Baltimore 3, Cleveland 0 — June 26-28 at Baltimore.
Texas 3, Baltimore 1 — June 29-July 2 at Baltimore.
ANGELS 3, Texas 0 — July 3-5 at Arlington.
ANGELS 2, Colorado 0 — July 7-8 at Denver.
ANGELS 2, Seattle 2 — July 9-12 at Seattle (Angels, 20-19).
ANGELS 4, Boston 0 — July 17-20 at Anaheim.
ANGELS 2, Minnesota 1 — July 21-23 at Anaheim.
Texas 2, ANGELS 1 — July 24-26 at Anaheim.
Texas 2, New York (AL) 2 — July 27-30 at Arlington (New York, 35-19).
Texas 2, San Francisco 1 — July 31-August 2 at Arlington.
Texas 3, Houston 0 — August 3-5 at Arlington.
Seattle 2, Texas 1 — August 7-9 at Seattle.
Seattle 2, Baltimore 1 — August 10-12 at Seattle.
Boston 2, Seattle 1 — August 14-16 at Boston.
Boston 2, Cleveland 1 — August 17-19,at Boston.
Boston 2, Kansas City 0 — August 20-21, at Boston, continuing.