Interleague baseball lineal wide open at All-Star break

As the 2021 baseball season reached its midpoint, the lineal title across the big leagues had no clear favorites, other than a predilection to remain in the American League. But there's still time for an NL club to run a championship.

The race to the lineal championship across big league baseball in 2021 came to the All-Star break as a wide-open proposition. Except that it was all happening in the American League.

The championship has changed hands 12 time so far, each time going to an American League club. National League teams have failed in four attempts to wrestle the championship from the American League. The closest the NL came was the Colorado Rockies losing two of three at home to the Oakland Athletics in early June, and even then, the A's won the first two, so there was no rubber game.

The standings at the All-Star break show a pretty even race, with five teams reaching 10 games of championship and no one winning 20.

A Super League berth could hang in the balance here, and it will be decided by criterion. The A's and Angels have qualified for the stat-off by already reaching some combination of championships and defenses adding to five or better. The Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays will qualify with one more championship. 

The Boston Red Sox will qualify with their next title, so long as they don't fail in a challenge some time during the season. They are the only team among the early contenders that has not failed a challenge.

The Seattle Mariners won the championship by taking two of three from the Angels during the final weekend before the break. But the two clubs will rematch in Anaheim when play resumes.

If the Mariners win that series, they will put it up to a challenge against Colorado, another chance for the NL. But if the Angels win, they will put it up to challenge to Oakland, another chance for the A's.

Yanks lead Elite Division, but playoffs will decide

The New York Yankees lead the Elite Division at the end of its first regular season, but this chase probably won't be decided until the end of the postseason.

Outfielder Aaron Judge is one of many who has powered the New York Yankees to the top of the Elite Division entering the 2019 playoffs (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

The baseball season that is entering its final and deciding stages happens to present our first reckoning of an Elite Division, which also will crop up in some other sports.

In concept, the Elite Division is a tournament of champions, but they are the champions documented in these pages. In short, the best teams from the pyramids, traveling championships and regional four-by-four arrangements shall be entered into the next season's Elite Division.

For example, the 2019 Elite Division is composed of the top half of the 2018 First Division, the top three clubs from the Second Division, the top two from the Third Division and the top club from the Fourth Division. Any traveling champions who haven't qualified in the pyramid will be entered, as well as qualifying teams from the four-by-four who haven't qualified in the pyramid or the travelers.

The mix this created for the 2019 Elite Division has produced a robust, even competition that remains far from decided entering the postseason. Seven of the top eight clubs in this 11-team Elite Division are going to the playoffs, with a mere 6 1/2 games separating first place from eighth place.

The New York Yankees lead the Elite Division ending the regular season, but their position is far from secure. It unlikely that the Yankees will finish on top of this pile without winning the World Series, and anything short of that for the Bronx Bombers stands to leave this championship up for grabs.

The Houston Astros are in second place, two games down and trailing the Yankees by 13 percentage points (.543 to .530) weighted to the mean, as we do these standings. The third-place club, the Arizona Diamondbacks, are the only contending club not in the playoffs. Thus, they are frozen at a mean weighted percentage of .528, which could win it if the Yankees and Astros both falter.

Or, the Atlanta Braves (.524), St. Louis Cardinals (.521) or Oakland Athletics (.511) could make a move. Anything can happen in these playoffs. If one of these clubs can turn up a four-game sweep anywhere in this near future, it's a race changer.

Way down these standings, almost at the very bottom, we find the Boston Red Sox, and this tells us something interesting about the Red Sox. It's true that the Red Sox have fallen a long way after winning two consecutive First Division titles and the 2018 World Championship. It's also true that it still took a pretty good club to beat the Red Sox in 2019.

Against this prestigious stack of clubs from the Elite Division, the Red Sox finished 25-39. But they were 88-74 overall, meaning they were 63-36 against everyone else. They did beat the teams that you have to beat. They just didn't beat the teams that you need to beat.

The Red Sox will not be in the 2020 Elite Division. However, the Yankees, Astros, Braves, Cardinals, Athletics, Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays already have either qualified for return to the Elite Division in 2020, or have all but qualified.


The winner of the Elite Division also will be qualified for next year's version so that it can attempt a defense of its championship.

Elite Division adds juice to 2018 baseball pyramid

The establishment of an Elite Division for 2019 made the 2018 baseball pyramid chase all the more interesting. Somehow, though, the Dodgers are left out of the party.

The 2018 baseball season began with a decree that a new competition would be established for 2019, a champions league that would include the top finishers at every level of the promotion/relegation pyramid from the previous season. It shall be called the Elite Division.

The idea is along the lines of the various continental champions leagues produced each year by FIFA, the international governing body of soccer. Each of the national leagues has an allotment of teams in its continental champions league, depending on the strength of the league.

In this baseball arrangement, of course, we're just looking at the big league clubs across North America, but we do have them in four divisions. And it does seem, without putting pencil and paper to it, that the leading clubs from the lower divisions wind up being competitive year by year. So, we'll find out, sort of.

Here's the scheme, which will run across every promotion/relegation pyramid in these pages. In sports with four levels to the pyramid, the next year's champions league will include the top half of the first division (four teams), the top three in the second division, the top two in the third division and the top team from the fourth division.

The effect, one supposes, would be to add a bit of juice to the middle of the top divisions and create a little more value for winning the bottom rung. The top two clubs from every division except the first always have been promoted. But there has been nothing in it for the second-place team in the top division. Now, there is a prize for finishing in the top half of the top tier, and also for the third-place team in the second division.

The new league will embrace all of the pyramid champions from the previous season, along with a few others with demonstrated competence. Not only will the new league juice the pyramid, but it shall stand at the top of the pyramid system as a fascinating competition in its own right. That is the dream.

The additional competition succeeded in making the baseball pyramid in 2018 even more interesting than usual. And more heartbreaking. Yes, the dream already is coming true.

Take, for example, the First Division. As the regular season ended, the Dodgers were in fourth place at 13-12, followed by the 13-13 Arizona Diamondbacks. Neither club was eligible for promotion or relegation at that point, because each had only two opponents from the First Division (three is the minimum). However, that stipulation will not apply to eligibility for the champions league. If the season had ended then, the Dodgers would be in the 2019 champions league.

However, because of the imbalance in baseball schedules, it is the one sport with a pyramid in which the postseason is included. And it happens that the Dodgers lasted to the World Series, where they met the Boston Red Sox of the First Division.

The Red Sox already had clinched the First Division championship and still would have won it by five games even if they had been swept by the Dodgers. The stakes for the Dodgers were much higher, for they would have to win the World Series to make the champions league. If the Dodgers took it to seven games and lost, they would have finished 16-16, .500 with the Diamondbacks in fourth place, and the Diamondbacks held the tiebreaker for their 11-8 record head-to-head against the Dodgers.

We all know, of course, that the World Series went badly for the Dodgers. The Red Sox beat them in five games. The Dodgers finished 14-16 in the First Division, fifth place. The Diamondbacks are going to the champions league. The Dodgers were the best club across the National League for two years running, but in these tests weighted to the top teams in the game, their failures against the Diamondbacks and Red Sox cost them dearly.

The Dodgers, however, never had to fear relegation, a fate that the Cleveland Indians escaped, but the Washington Nationals and Toronto Blue Jays did not.

In the Second Division, the added arrangement produced a new prize, for while first and second places always have earned promotion, third place now has the champions league sweetener. And that still wasn't enough to account for the strong group of clubs that bunched in the middle of that second tier, all from the National League Central Division.

None of them could match the Houston Astros, who now have climbed the ladder in the three-year minimum after spending 2011 through 2016 in the Fourth Division. The Astros will be in the First Division in 2019 after a 21-8 showing to top the 2018 Second Division.

The race for the other promotion was much more thick, made juicier by the addition of a champion's league berth for the third-place club. Four teams were in this thick, and they know each other well.

The St. Louis Cardinals won the scrum with a 38-32 (.543) record among Second Division clubs, still 3½ games behind the Astros. Within 1½ games of the Cardinals were the Pittsburgh Pirates (36-31, .537), the Chicago Cubs (35-32, .5223) and the Milwaukee Brewers (36-33, .5217).

So, the Cardinals, along with the Astros, are promoted to the First Division in 2019, and now they have the additional distinction of joining the champion's league. The Pirates, finishing third, also are ticketed to the 2019 champion's league.

Not necessarily for nothing, we note that this result is almost precisely opposed to how it actually went down in the NL Central race. In that form, the Brewers nosed out the Cubs by a game, with the Cardinals finishing well down and the Pirates even further back.

It is unusual for any of these pyramid divisions to include four clubs from the same Major League division. These 2018 results show what a difference it makes, because the games those four clubs play amongst themselves are weighted much more heavily in the pyramid divisions than in the Major League standings.

The Brewers were 27-31 in their games against the Cubs, Cards and Pirates. They won their big league division over those teams without beating those teams. They were 69-36 against everyone else. Head-to-head among the four clubs, the Cubs were 30-28, while the Cardinals and Pirates each were 29-28. The Brewers won the NL Central. In the Second Division, they're out of the money.

The Cardinals actually made the race for second place more interesting than necessary, dropping five of six to the Brewers and Cubs during the final week of September. Third place actually came down to the one-game playoff for the NL Central title between the Cubs and Brewers on Oct. 1. The Brewers won it, 3-1. The Brewers were out of contention by then, but a win for the Cubs would have put them in a flat-footed tie with the Pirates. The Cubs held a 10-9 tiebreaker, but they also might have faced the Brewers and Astros later in the playoffs.

More heartbeak in the Third Division, where the Angels, Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins tightly bunched at the top. Percentage rules here, so the Rockies took it at 15-9, .625.

The Twins (27-18, .600), and Angels (15-10, .600), were right there. But the Twins took the second promotion for their lead over the rest in the games column. When the championship  is split like this between the categories, the percentage leader is declared champion, but the games leader also will be promoted. In principle, a team playing to some high percentage in more games is more accomplished than another team reaching that same percentage in fewer games.

There was much less controversy at the bottom of the Third Division, with the Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox ticketed downward. Two American League West clubs, the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners, were clearly the best two clubs in the Fourth Division. Between them, the A's were better. Both are going up to the Third Division, but the A's are going to the champion's league.

BoSox, DBacks win Second Division bids for 2016

The Boston Red Sox rallied and the Arizona Diamondbacks held firm to finish 2015 as the top two clubs in the Third Division and win promotion for 2016. But the Colorado Rockies and Oakland Athletics are going down.

The Boston Red Sox won five of their last six games in the Third Division and rallied to the championship in 2015, overtaking the Minnesota Twins for promotion.

The Red Sox finished 16-10 in the Third Division to prevail over the Arizona Diamondbacks (21-16)  by one-half game.

The Arizona Diamondbacks finished second in the Third Division to take the second promotion to the Second Division for 2016. Ordinarily, placement is decided by winning percentage, but the Diamondbacks made it in on a rule that went into effect before the season to compensate for the inequities in baseball scheduling.

The rule says that if the third-place team by percentage finishes within one-half game of the top, plays 150 percent as many games as the second-place team by percentage, finishes ahead of that second-place percentage team in the games column and is within 20 percentage points of that second-place percentage team, then that third-place team by percentage gets second place and the promotion.

In this case, the Diamondbacks played 37 games, compared with 24 for the Twins. The DBacks finished one-half game behind the Red Sox, while the Twins finished one game behind. The Twins had the better winning percentage, .583 to .567.

The rule isn't ideal, but we have to work with what's really there. The Diamondbacks participated more fully in the Third Division than the Twins (or the Red Sox, for that matter) and won at a rate just below the Twins. We can argue with the rule, but we can't argue that the Diamondbacks don't deserve promotion.

The Twins led for much of the year, but stumbled out of a promotional spot by losing three of their last four while the Red Sox surged. The Chicago Cubs also came up fast, winning six of their last eight games.

The Cubs (12-10) and Seattle Mariners (22-20) finished in fourth, two games out.

The Colorado Rockies and Oakland Athletics were, without contest, the two lowest teams in the Third Division. Both are being relegated to the Fourth Division in 2016. Coming up from the Fourth Division are the New York Mets and the Chicago White Sox.

While the Red Sox and Diamondbacks go up to the Second Division in 2016, the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers are coming down from the Second Division to the Third Division.

Angels unique among expansion teams

Just going by the regular season histories, the Angels are the most successful expansion franchise in  Major League Baseball, being the only expansion franchise with a winning record through its entire life. The Angels went over. 500 in July 2014 and they have kept winning.

Gene Mauch won two division managing the Angels before their golden age of the 21st century (Topps baseball card. It is believed this low resolution, cropped and watermarked image of a poster to identify the subject of this story is fair use in the absence of a public domain image of the subject.).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

It's worthwhile to note a unique anniversary that passed last month for the Angels.

A year ago on July 10, the Angels became the first and only expansion team across the Major Leagues to achieve a winning record historically. The Angels went over the top for good (so far) with a 15-6 win against the Texas Rangers in Arlington that night, bringing their all-time record up to 4274-4273-3. Since then, the Angels are 99-71, bringing themselves up to 4,373-4,347 all-time entering games of August 1 (all numbers in this piece are from Baseball-reference.com).

Out of 30 Major League franchises, 13 are breaking even or better historically in regular season games. Of those 13, 12 are original "modern era" franchises, meaning they go back at least to the founding of the American League in 1901. 

Presumably, the traditional franchises would have winning records because they could fatten up on expansion teams through the years, but it hasn't always worked out that way, especially not in the American League, where three franchises lost so much before expansion that they still haven't caught up. They are the Baltimore Orioles (formerly the St. Louis Browns), the Minnesota Twins (formerly the Washington Senators) and the Oakland Athletics (formerly of Philadelphia and Kansas City), who could pretty reliably be counted upon to finish in the second division of the American League when it was said that the World Series wasn't official unless it included the New York Yankees.

The only pre-expansion National League team with an historical losing record is the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies also are more games under .500 (1,111) than any other pre-expansion team, followed by the Orioles (840), the Twins (698) and the Athletics (440). In the pre-expansion American League, one team won a lot (the Yankees) and three teams (the Senators, Athletics and Browns) lost quite a bit. In the pre-expansion National League, three teams won quite a bit (the Cardinals, Dodgers and Giants) and one franchise (the Phillies) lost a lot.

Behind the Angels, the next best expansion team relative to .500 is the Toronto Blue Jays, who are 59 games short of breaking even since their debut in 1977.

Two other teams in recent years have flirted with reaching .500 historically.

The Atlanta Braves succeeded, and they now are a robust 48 games over .500 in their 140-year history, which began in 1876 as the Boston Red Stockings of Harry Wright and George Wright. The Braves were so consistently terrible through their last 50 years in Boston that they didn't reach .500 until 2012. Think about this: The Braves won 14 straight division titles from 1991 through 2005, and that still wasn't enough to break them even.

The Houston Astros failed to become the first expansion team to reach .500 a couple of times in the last 10 years. A run of excellent Houston clubs from 1993 through 2006 brought the Astros within four games of .500 entering the 2007 season. But the Astros finished 73-89 in 2007, putting themselves 20 games under. An 86-75 effort for the Astros in 2008 brought them back within nine games of .500. But the Astros went 74-88 in 2009, and the losing has continued all the way up until this season. The Astros now are 205 games below .500 in their history.

Getting to .500 wasn't easy for the Angels, either. 

The Angels actually began their life with three winning seasons (and another year with 80 wins) in their first seven. But from 1968 until 2002, there wasn't a lot happening – just a couple decent clubs in the late 1970s and three good clubs in the late 1980s. 

The Angels were working from way behind going to 2002 – 234 games below .500 historically. So, they have moved fast, rolling up seven seasons with 90 or more wins in the last 14 complete seasons. Unquestionably, the 21st century has been a new era for the Angels, and it has been a good one.

The Angels entered the 2014 season 16 games below .500 historically, and their start, combined with their losing effort in 2013, gave little indication that much was to come. As of May 7, they were 16-17. They began then to win a little more than they lost, but they still were just 37-32 as of June 16. 

But the Angels then went on a huge roll, winning 21 of their next 26 games through July 18. They first reached .500 with a 5-2 win against the Toronto Blue Jays on July 7, bringing themselves up to 4,272-4,272-3 all-time. But they lost, 4-0, to the Jays the next night, dropping back below .500.

No problem, though, because the Angels were getting hot. An 8-7 win against the Jays on July 9 brought them back even, then the Angels went to Arlington and went over for good with their 15-6 win on July 10. 

The Angels still were 3½ games behind the Oakland Athletics in the American League West at that point and they wouldn't move into first place until Aug. 16. But they held first place once they took it and finished the regular season 98-64 before losing their only playoff series to the Kansas City Royals in a three-game sweep.

After Dipoto leaves, Angels nab Aaron, Killebrew

The Angels broke out their bats during the July 4 weekend in Arlington, scoring 33 runs in a three-game sweep of the Texas Rangers. We won't say for sure that the Angels players were glad to see general manager Jerry Dipoto go, but we're pretty sure they weren't upset to see him leave.

Angels slugger Albert Pujols reportedly had words with general manager Jerry Dipoto shortly before the latter resigned (Marianne O'Leary [UC International crop]/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

It's easy to say the wheels are coming off the Angels' season now that general manager Jerry Dipoto has left the building after a much-reported dust-up with the fellows in baseball uniforms. It's much harder to say the wheels are staying on.

We prefer to do things the hard way, so we're going in that direction. An air clearing like this isn't the worst that can happen with a baseball club that's really been flat-lining all season, just winning a couple and then losing a couple, ad nauseum, all the way from the start of April until now.

Not a bad idea to roll a head or two under the circumstances, and Dipoto ended up rolling his own.

In a short run of games since Dipoto gave way on July 1, the Angels have performed well, demolishing the Texas Rangers three straight in Arlington during the July 4 weekend by a combined score of 33-8.

Incidentally, the three-game sweep gave the Angels possession of the Harmon Killebrew Award
and the Henry Aaron Award.

It's easy to say Dipoto's departure must have made the Angels bats happy, at least immediately. How this plays out in the long term is anyone's guess, though it's hard by now to believe the players were thrilled with their former general manager.

One can imagine how it went over with the players when the guy in the polo shirt – the guy who didn't provide a lead-off hitter, or a clean-up hitter, or even a No. 6 hitter, the guy who traded away the old second baseman and didn't replace him, the guy who worked harder at poor-mouthing Josh Hamilton than at replacing him – when that guy went into the clubhouse and told players that the real problem was that the coaches weren't giving them good enough information. One can imagine.

But we don't have to imagine, because the reports tell us that what happened is what we would imagine. At least we know now who's the boss, and it isn't Mike Scioscia, the 15-year manager who's still under contract through 2018 at $6 million per year. Scioscia won the power struggle with Dipoto when Hall-of-Fame-bound first baseman Albert Pujols got his back. When the GM enters the clubhouse to run a meeting with the players and the most expensive and accomplished player on the team basically tells him to do his own job better, it's over.

So, the boss is Pujols, and everyone kind of knew that the moment he signed that 10-year deal for $240 million before the 2012 season. Angels owner Arte Moreno has much more invested in Pujols than in Scioscia or Dipoto. Now Pujols leads the American League with 25 home runs, his credibility is high and the general manager went across him. Cross Scioscia? Part of the general manager's job. Cross Pujols? Probably not the general manager's job.

Compare the situation with what happened last year in Oakland. Reports say a huge conflict arose between their general manager, Billy Beane, and their best player, Josh Donaldson, with manager Bob Melvin in the middle. After the season, Beane traded Donaldson to the Toronto Blue Jays. Beane has said the conflict did not motivate the trade, and it doesn't even matter. The Athletics will never be so invested in a player that Beane can't trade him for any reason he wants.

By the reports, Dipoto was dissatisfied at how basic scouting information was filtering through the coaching staff to the players. By the reports, Pujols told Dipoto that the roster this year just isn't as good as the roster last year.

We can't judge if Dipoto was right, but we definitely can judge that Pujols was right. The most obvious problem is a dreadful lack of depth in the batting order. When your lineup has Pujols and Mike Trout, but you still have one of the worst offensive teams in the Major Leagues, that's almost an achievement. Even after their hitting explosion in Texas, the Rangers still are 11th of 15 American League teams at 4.10 runs per game.

One doesn't have to be a player to see that the front office has failed his team. Time will tell, for example, if young left-hander Andrew Heaney is ultimately a good return for popular and productive second baseman Howie Kendrick. So far, though, time is saying the Angels are significantly downgraded at second base.

In so many ways, the Angels front office performed terribly throughout the Josh Hamilton saga. When you commit $125 million to a known and admitted drug addict, a constructive approach to a relapse has to be part of the equation. But the Angels didn't see it that way, because they never thought they were committed to $125 million. They thought Hamilton's drug problem would get him suspended without pay, the way performing enhancing drugs (PEDs) are, and that they could weasel out of his contract if he relapsed. When they learned otherwise, they were petulant and indignant.

We don't suppose for one second that Moreno's chaotic leadership isn't behind all of this, but Dipoto got in front of the microphones and played the heavy, and that couldn't have gone over well with players who are sympathetic to Hamilton. The Angels management reacted to Hamilton's problems with outrage, as if a drug addict's relapse somehow defied the moral and physical laws of the universe.

The Angels already knew Hamilton would miss the start of the season with shoulder trouble, even before we all learned of his relapse. Yet, they did next to nothing – they signed Matt Joyce – to account for Hamilton's absence in left field and the middle of the batting order. The problem isn't that the Angels don't have Hamilton, who OPS-plussed 114 last season. They can replace that with someone about as good as Juan Rivera used to be. The problem is that they don't have anybody.

So, the Angels figured all along that they would be rid of Hamilton's contract with a relapse, they rooted openly for him to be suspended because of the relapse, when they didn't get their way they sent Hamilton back to the Rangers for almost nothing and, all this time, they didn't make a serious bid to replace him. And they have a big whole in their lineup now because of it.

One day a couple of weeks ago, the general manager entered the players quarters and told them he was going around the field manager to fix the club's mediocre performance. If you're a player on that team, maybe the general manager can go to hell. The Angels happen to have a player who can tell him that.

We're not saying Pujols told Dipoto where to go. All we know is that Dipoto went somewhere.

2013 Fourth Division standings and summary

The final remaining team from the original Fourth Division, the Kansas City Royals, finally get to move up. But they are behind the Oakland Athletics, who won this tier with ease in 2013.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

With the Houston Astros switching leagues and moving into the American League West in 2013, the Oakland Athletics had an easy whipping boy in the Fourth Division, and they took advantage.

The A's went 15-4 against the Astros on their way to a 25-7 trot through the Fourth Division to claim first place by nine games over the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets. The A's are the only team with a winning record within this division.

As the Mets were only 7-7, thus lacking enough wins to advance, the Royals finally get to break into the Third Division. The Royals were 17-17.

Finally, the entire original Fourth Division from 2010 has turned over, though the Mets, one of that original group, has moved up and returned. 

2012 Fourth Division standings and summary

Following the Fourth Division results from 2012, the Kansas City Royals will be the last original bottom division team in 2013. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles are moving up.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals finally showed real signs of improvement within the Fourth Division in 2012. 

The Pirates and Orioles both improved enough to win Third Division promotion for 2013. The Royal remain the only team in the original 2010 Fourth Division to remain in the basement level.

The Pirates finished with the best winning percentage, though the Orioles didn't finish any games behind them. The Pirates, 79-83 during the Major League season, still didn't go to the playoffs, but the Orioles (93-69) entered as the second wild card in the American League.

The Houston Astros were spared a second consecutive cellar finish, thanks to the tumbling Chicago White Sox, who finished nine games from the top.

West League: Who are these Houston Astros?

The Houston Astros lead not only the American League West at the moment, but also the West League, though in a very close race. The Astros made a big move during the past week with a successful road trip through Seattle and Oakland.

Houston Astros left-hander Dallas Keuchel is about as good as any pitcher going right now (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

Just who are these Houston Astros who we spy now at the top of the West League standings?

They don't seem like much. They are 11th in the 15-team American League in scoring with 70 runs. And, though they are second in the American League with a 3.18 ERA, most of their pitchers are pretty weak in that basic category.

But when you have a left-hander getting people out the way Dallas Keuchel is doing it, it's going to make those team numbers look good. Keuchel has allowed only two earned runs in 29 innings — both of those runs in the same game — ranging over four starts. He's only 2-0 after a no-decision on April 24, when he tossed nine shutout innings before the Astros rallied for a 5-4 win at Oakland in 11 innings.

So, Keuchel has a 0.62 ERA. He has given up only 13 hits, four per nine innings.

The Astros have won eight of their last 10, all in the West League, and this last week has been quite a feat — five wins on a six-game road swing through Seattle and Oakland. The Astros began the week 2 1/2 games behind the Dodgers, but the Dodgers lost three straight in San Francisco before winning two of three in San Diego. So, the Astros now have a lead of one-half game in the West League and the league's South Division.

The San Francisco Giants now visit the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium the first half of this week, so we shall see if the Dodgers pin them back.

The Arizona Diamondbacks still lead the North Division by one-half game on the Colorado Rockies, but neither club is setting the West on fire. The Diamondbacks are 8-7 in the league.

Games of April 20
San Diego 14, at Colorado 3.
Oakland 6, at ANGELS 3.
Houston 7, at Seattle 5.

Games of April 21
San Diego 7, at Colorado 6.
Texas 7, at Arizona 1.
at ANGELS 14, Oakland 1.
Houston 6, at Seattle 3.
at San Francisco 6, Los Angeles (NL) 2.

Games of April 22
Oakland 9, at ANGELS 2.
at Seattle 3, Houston 2.
at Arizona 8, Texas 5.
at Colorado 5, San Diego 4.
at San Francisco 3, DODGERS 2.a

Games of April 23
at ANGELS 2, Oakland 0.
at San Francisco 3, DODGERS 2, 10 innings.

Games of April 24
at ANGELS 3, Texas 2.
Houston 5, at Oakland 4, 11 innings.
at Colorado 6, San Francisco 4.
DODGERS 3, at San Diego 0.

Games of April 25
at ANGELS 4, Texas 1.
Houston 9, at Oakland 3.
San Francisco 5, Colorado 4, 11 innings.
DODGERS 11, at San Diego 8.

Games of April 26
Texas 5, at ANGELS 4, 11 innings
Houston 7, at Oakland 6.
at San Diego 3, DODGERS 1.

2011 Third Division standings and summary

After getting thumped out of the Second Division in 2010, the Detroit Tigers dominated the Third Division in 2011 and they will go back to the second tier in 2012. Joining them in promotion will be the Arizona Diamondbacks, even though they barely broke better than even in this group.

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Detroit Tigers won their first of four straight American League Central titles in 2011. Let's see how fast they rise through these ranks.

For now, they won promotion back to the Second Division for 2012, winning the 2011 Third Division with a 25-15 record. Joining the Tigers in their rise to the Second Division will be the Arizona Diamondbacks, by a nose.

The Diamondbacks (16-14, .533) got the nod by percentage points over the Florida Marlins (24-22, .522). The New York Mets, fresh to the Third Division, finished just a game behind Arizona and Florida, while the Toronto Blue Jays again just missed rising a level after finishing 1 1/2 games behind the Diamondbacks and Marlins.

The Oakland Athletics and Chicago White Sox each had light Third Division schedules in 2010, which might have helped them escape relegation. In 2011, both teams had heavy Third Division schedules, and both did poorly enough to earn Fourth Division relegation for the 2012 season.

2012 West League standings and summary

The San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics both finished 94-68 across the 2012 Major League Baseball season, but the Giants were the clear winner of the West League, which shows a clear contrast in how the Bay Area clubs succeeded that year.

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The two Bay Area clubs, the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics, each finished the regular major league season at 94-68. But in the West League, the Giants walked over everyone, including the Athletics.

The Giants won the West League by a full 6 1/2 games on the Athletics, and no one else was even that close.

Evidently, nay, obviously, the Giants dominated in the west as the A's did not. With a mark of 60-36 against the other western clubs, the Giants were 34-32 against all the other clubs. The Athletics were 43-32 in the west, putting them 51-36 against clubs from the other regions.

When we first proposed these regional leagues back in 2012, the Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks were in a tight battle on top of the West League's North Division. In the end, though, the Diamondbacks finished six games behind the Giants.

In the South Division, the Angels won a tight race against the Texas Rangers, prevailing by 1 1/2 games. That's not exactly how it went in the American League West, where the Rangers notoriously collapsed and the Athletics surged to take it by a game, while the Angels finished five games behind the A's.

In the West League, the Athletics are in the North Division, while the Southern California clubs and the Texas clubs are in the South Division.

Killebrew: Kansas City keeps cruising

The Kansas City Royals defended the Harmon Killebrew Award with a three-game sweep at home against the Chicago White Sox during the opening series of 2015 for both teams. Now, the Royals take the Killebrew to Anaheim this weekend against the Angels, who will set out to avenge their playoff defeat to the Royals from last October.

Royals manager Ned Yost has his club on a tear with the Harmon Killebrew Award, which now has been in Kansas City's hands for five straight title defenses (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution/ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

In addition to their other breakthroughs in 2014, the Kansas City Royals made a huge move up as a player for the Harmon Killebrew Award, the traveling honor in the American League established in 2011.

As with their better known achievements, the Royals became a factor very late in the 2014 season. And they're a factor early in the 2015 season, defending the Killebrew with a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox in Kansas City this week.

The Royals have held the Killebrew for 15 games, going back to a two-of-three capture from the Cleveland Indians in Cleveland last Sept. 22-24. The Royals then won three of four from the White Sox to end the regular season before their wildcard (1-0 over the Oakland Athletics), divisional (3-0 over the Angels) and American League Championship Series (4-0 over the Baltimore Orioles) victories ended the 2014 season with the Killebrew in their hands.

With their rally, the Royals finished 2014 at 27-16 in Killebrew games, taking the prize four times and defending it six times in nine attempts. They also held the honor for 27 games, barely nudging past the Minnesota Twins (24 games) and the Detroit Tigers (23). The Twins won the Killebrew five times, the most of any club, but they only defended it twice in seven attempts. The Tigers only won it twice, but defended it five times in seven tries.

The Royals' combined effort for the 2011-13 seasons came to 26-18 with four titles and four defenses in eight tries. During those seasons, the Royals played for the Killebrew 14 times and held it for a total of 25 days.

Now, the Royals take the prize with them to Angel Stadium for a three-game weekend series against the Angels. Despite their 98-win output in 2014, the Angels seldom crossed paths with the Killebrew. They played for it only five times, finishing 7-8 with two titles, both of which they failed to defend.

Historically, the Angels are 51-41 in Killebrew games, having played for it 29 times and winning eight titles. They are 10-for-19 in title defenses, holding the prize for a combined 58 games.

AL 2014 a tale told by Athletics, Royals

One couldn't find two more different clubs in the American League than the Oakland Athletics, who went through much of the year as the team to beat, and the Kansas City Royals, who were unbeatable during the American League playoffs. The Royals will begin the World Series tonight against the San Francisco Giants.

First baseman Eric Hosmer has helped to power the Kansas City Royals to the World Series (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

We wondered if the Angels dodged a bullet on Sept. 30, when the Kansas City Royals took down the Oakland Athletics in the American League widcard playoff game.

Now, we're certain the Angels didn't dodge a bullet. Or, if they did, they just ran into the path of a more deadly bullet. The Royals took the Angels out of the American League Division Series (ALDS) in three games before sweeping the Baltimore Orioles in a four-game American League Championship Series (ALCS). 

Tonight, the Royals begin the World Series against the San Francisco Giants, capping a postseason that has exhilarated baseball fans and confounded numbers crunchers. 

The Giants took a 3-1 lead in games against the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series (NLCS) by scoring 12 of their last 22 runs on plays that didn't involve a base hit. The Giants have taken to calling themselves “cockroaches,” because you can't kill them. They polished off the Cardinals in Game 5 of the NLCS with a 6-3 win, scoring all their runs on homers. 

This might not be the World Series that fans of the Oakland Athletics would have wanted. Their rivals across the San Francisco Bay are in, and they're not. The American League club that plays most counter to Oakland's preference for long-run probabilistic reasoning is in, and they're not. 

It was hard, a couple of weeks ago, to imagine a more joyous scenario for the Athletics and a more ugly scenario for the Angels than this: Jon Lester pitches a gem for the Athletics, enabling them to win the wild card game in Kansas City. Then, the A's enter the ALDS with the Angels and prevail with pitching, specifically with Lester. With that, the Athletics would move on to the American League Championship Series, a puzzling midseason trade by Oakland general manager Billy Beane would have been redeemed, and the Angels would have lost the edge they've gain this year in their rivalry with the Athletics.

The next week of games might have been about an Oakland club banished from division contention, then redeemed for the reason of their banishment, a bulked-up pitching staff for which the A's gave away much of their ability to score. It might have been about Lester, made whole by winning the game he needed to win, now setting out to capsize the Angels, who beat them silly during a four-game sweep in Anaheim last month that decided the division early.

It could have been about those things. The narrative could have shifted back to the misunderstood genius of Oakland general manager Billy Beane and his wise men from elite universities, if only Lester could have redeemed a certain trade and held a 7-3 he took to the eighth inning in Kansas City. But all that's off the table. 

The Royals took it off the table quickly, rallying for a 9-8 win against the Athletics in an 12-inning wild card game. Then, they took the Angels off the table. It began on Game 1 of the ALDS, when the Royals won the game Thursday night that had to go into the win column for the Angels, the game with Jered Weaver pitching in the Big A against Jason Vargas. After that, the Royals were on their way.

When the World Series ends and we have contemplated why it went down the way it did, the enduring memory of this season will be the collapse of the Athletics, who endured such a nightmare for two months at the end. They were 72-44 on Aug. 9, and they needed every bit of that to endure their next seven weeks of losing and still have room to barely make the playoffs. Oakland didn't enter the playoffs looking like it would last long, and when the Royals, trailing, 7-3, kicked up a little dust in the eighth inning, one could feel the wind rushing in. The Royals were hitting, stealing, hitting the runner in, then stealing again. Lester left with a 7-4 lead with one out, and the tying run was at the plate. 

As if to mock the sabrmeticians and their darling Athletics, the Royals stole seven bases, including four in that wild eighth inning during which they cut that deficit to 7-6. In the ninth, the Royals tied it by bunting and stealing, which the stat fetishist disdains. In the 12th, the Royals hit the ball hard, and they won the game that way.

Many keystrokes have been expended trying to explain why the Athletics flop in the postseason, and all of them put together didn't say it as well as the Royals said it in the wild card game. The A's lost this game not because they eschew small ball, but because the Royals embrace it.

The stat fetishist struggles against the bleeding reality of baseball and often winds down his keystrokes by introducing a theoretical entity called "luck." At that point, we're not doing science, obviously, as luck neither explains nor predicts anything. But Beane believes in luck, too, as he said in his infamous Moneyball remark, "My shit doesn't work in the playoffs. My job is to get us to the playoffs. What happens after that is f*cking luck." 

Beane is wrong about this. The playoffs aren't about luck. They are about baseball, the game of skill and tactics. And, it appears, there are skills and tactics in baseball, which the numbers discourage, but they're also extremely useful tools for winning baseball games. How can the numbers show that certain tactics are disadvantageous for winning baseball games, yet the team most known for following the numbers never wins in the playoffs and was just now eliminated, in fact, because the team it just played would be nowhere without those tactics?

We've never understood, over here, why anyone would assume that a so-called "Moneyball" team would have to succeed in the playoffs, as if their success during the regular season should be some kind of necessary or sufficient condition for winning in the playoffs. We don't see the mystery. There's nothing that says a Moneyball team couldn't or shouldn't succeed in the playoffs, but the playoffs are such an entirely different competitive environment that we shouldn't expect the large database of the regular season to have any predictive force.

When you're putting together your Moneyball team, you're making a number of calculations. All of those calculations account for the long haul, and the 162-game regular season is nothing if not a long haul. That's a lot of discrete events converging on enough agreement to produce reliable conclusions about how to win x number of games. The book, not the old book but the new one, says you will score more runners from first base with no outs than from second base with one out. Over the long haul. So don't bunt. The book says that if you can't succeed on about 75 percent of your stolen base attempts, then you've probably lost more opportunities to score than you've gained. Over the long haul. So, be very careful with the running game.

So, you follow the principles, along with some others, such as, famously, going for hitters with high on-base averages. You finish off the roster figuring that the secondary numbers will add up to about 90 wins, then you send your team out there and it comes back with about 90 wins and a playoff spot. It works. It's a good system. Ingenious, really. It deserves the acclaim that it gets.

But now you're in the playoffs, and the evidence base on which you built your team to win the most possible games out of 162 can't give you the answers you need, because now your goal isn't to win about 90 games out of 162, but to win this one and only game right now. There is no long haul over which the numbers will even out through time. There is only this game, and there is only right now. 

So when the Royals trail, 7-6, in the bottom of the eighth with Jarrod Dyson on second base as the tying run, they're not thinking, "Over the long haul of 162 games, you will lose more scoring opportunities by running than by not running, so we better not try to steal third base." They're thinking that they need to win this game right now, and their best chance to do it is by stealing third base. When the Royals have a runner on first with nobody out, they're not thinking, "Over the long haul, the runner from first with no outs scores more often than the runner on second with one out, so bunting is the last thing on our mind." They're thinking that if they can get the runner to second with one out, they've got a chance to win this game right now. And they drop a bunt.

When you already know you've got another game tomorrow, you'll come out fine by following the long-haul percentages. When you don't have another game tomorrow unless you win this game right now, those long-haul percentages couldn't be less helpful. And a team that can't or doesn't execute those little ball tools to win this game right now is going to be at a disadvantage. 

During the postseason, the Royals have utilized those tactics to huge advantage, and opponents have been unable to defend against them. Over 162 games, perhaps, those tactics won't optimize your scoring. But you're going to need them in the playoffs. You're not playing the Cubs and Astros fattening up your numbers now. The teams you're playing against are likely to keep a lid on it defensively, so you need every tactic to score.

The Athletics, under Beane, have been one of the most frequent playoff entrants in the American League during this century. But we shouldn't be surprised when a team that's built to optimize in the long haul doesn't have the tools to optimize in the short haul. The playoffs aren't just a different season. The games are substantially different games because there are so few of them. 

The Royals are better right now than they really are, and this is not an unlikely occurrence, either. Kansas City's success with small ball is worth noting, but the Royals are winning with a great deal more. Finishing last in the American League this year with 95 home runs, the Royals have hit seven homers in eight postseason games. The home runs don't explain how the Royals have won each round of these playoffs, but the home runs have a lot to say about how they swept through the American League postseason.

Reliable power hitting by Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas isn't normally on the Kansas City menu. But it can be on the menu, it has been on the menu and, in their run against the Angels and Orioles, it happens that their kitchen brought in a shipment of home runs. When the Royals hit home runs, they are an outstanding team that can beat anyone. 

We saw it at the start of June, when the Royals went on a 15-4 tear over a three-week period, hitting 18 homers with a club OPS of .781 in 19 games. So, it's there, but we haven't seen it often. Indeed, we're seeing it again only now, with the Royals crushing four homers in three games against the Angels, then three in four games against the Orioles.

It's not a team we have seen frequently. But when that team shows up at the right time, the playoffs, that team has a chance to live forever.

Lester, trade loom large as A's straggle to playoffs

Tuesday's American League wildcard game is a beauty, with the Oakland Athletics sending Jon Lester against the Kansas City Royals and James Shields. Both arrived in controversial trades. The Shields deal already has worked out for the Royals, and Lester still has a chance to save his trade if he is the postseason pitcher that he always has been.

The Oakland Athletics acquired Jon Lester from the Boston Red Sox to get them through the postseason. Tuesday night in Kansas City, Lester has a chance to do it (Keith Allison/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike Generic 2.0 license).

By BILL PETERSON
Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The backdrop couldn't be more different for the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals approaching their wildcard playoff game Tuesday night in Kansas City.

For the Royals, this playoff turn is their first in 30 years, since the real glory days, 1985 and its world championship. They are celebrating. The Royals have fought inch by inch to become a playoff team in the last couple of years, surviving to the last week last season and actually making a bid for the American League Central this year before settling in as the lead wildcard.

For the Athletics, an unimaginable nightmare continues. The Athletics lost 30 of their last 46 games, blowing a six-game lead in the AL West to the surging Angels, who won it going away. The Athletics, far from their days with the best record in the game, finished 10 games down to the Angels and fought to the final day to secure the final spot in the playoffs. So, the Athletics enter this game as a sinking ship. And their playoff history isn't glorious. The A's have been to the playoffs seven times in the 21st century, and won only one playoff series.

Many will tell you that the A's are where they are because of a certain trade they made on July 31. For the sake of Oakland general manager Billy Beane, we'll grant that saying so is a slight over-simplification, even though we never liked the trade for the Athletics. But it's not just a slight over-simplification. It's premature.

The Athletics are hanging this game on Jon Lester, who is in the cross hairs of a tortured narrative. Lester has done a fine job for the A's (2.35 ERA in 11 starts), and no one should blame him because the A's traded Yoenis Cespedes to get him in the deal that has taken a huge piece from the Athletics batting order. But it comes down to games like this for Lester, because games like this are why the A's got him. To some degree, Lester can ratify a very controversial trade for Billy Beane by coming through in this game.

And Lester is uniquely equipped to do it. He has pitched better against the Royals than against any other team in his career. The Royals are batting .196 with one homer against Lester in 353 plate appearances going back to 2006. Lester's record against the Royals is 9-3 with a 1.84 ERA in 13 starts (88 innings) with a WHIP of 1.068. The A's won only two of seven meetings with the Royals this year, and Lester pitched both of the wins, which went 8-3 and 11-3. They were the only games against the Royals in which the A's scored more than three runs. The Royals shut them out twice.

Lester has a 2.11 ERA in 11 starts and two relief appearances in the postseason. So, the A's have the right guy pitching in this game. One hopes. Because if Lester isn't the guy to pitch in this game, then this season will live in infamy for the Athletics. The Cespedes-for-Lester deal will go down as one of the biggest trading deadline blunders ever. Can the pitcher for whom Beane sacrificed so much offense do the job that he was brought in to do?

If Lester is the right guy, then he pitches the A's through Kansas City and then, all of a sudden, they're in a five-game series with the Angels, and you know the A's would relish that after how these last couple of months have gone. Lester can come back for Game 3 in that series, and there he would work in another critical moment. After what the Angels did to the A's last time they met, sweeping them four in Anaheim and blowing them right out of the division race ... these are games that the A's will want to play. And if the A's can get past the Angels, they will be lined up for two starts from Lester in the American League Championship Series.

The book is closed on Cespedes for this year. He has one more year on his contract with the Boston Red Sox, and he just drove in 100 runs for the first time. The Red Sox made out well, and they can take a crack at Lester on the free-agent market.

As far as the A's are concerned, the facts aren't all in. The trade certainly blew up on them down the back stretch as the A's continuously lost two out of every three games because they couldn't score. They're worse off for going in as a wildcard instead of the league's top seed. But all of that can be overcome with some pitching in the postseason. We still think the A's won't hit enough to go very far. But if Lester is everything that Beane traded for, then he will win some key games coming up and the A's could last for a while.

Some believe the Lester trade should somehow be compared with the deal that brought James Shields to the Royals, for whom he is the starting pitcher in this wildcard game. You can argue for their similarity, if you'd like, but the only similarity we see is that they are both trades. They are trades made by very different clubs for very different purposes.

Unlike the Athletics, who traded for Lester so they can make a big move in the playoffs, the Royals acquired Shields because they just needed someone to anchor their pitching rotation and help them contend for the playoffs. The Royals have never developed that guy and general manager Dayton Moore, entering the final year of his contract, paid big for Shields last spring.

Moore sent Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Patrick Leonard and Mike Montgomery to the Tampa Bay Rays in December 2012 and brought back Shields, Wade Davis and Elliot Johnson. The Royals were pretty roundly panned for the trade. With only one winning season since 1993 as they made the trade, the Royals were finally getting it right with player development. It didn't seem sensible for the Royals to deal away promising players when they still appeared a couple of years from contending. Dealing a big piece of long-term future for a short-term future that wasn't promising, the trade smacked of desperation for a general manager in the last year of his contract.

But when we look at the Royals now, we can see how the pieces fit. The Royals have plenty of players, many of them quite talented, who can run out to the outfield, first base or designated hitter. They can't get Alex Gordon, Jerrod Dyson, Lorenzo Cain, Nori Aoki, Eric Hosmer, Billy Butler and Josh Willingham all into the same lineup. Two of those guys have to sit. We can't say the Royals are better off without Myers, who won the American League Rookie of the Year in 2013 with a 131 OPS-plus, but they aren't scrambling to fill his position, either.

The true gold in this trade is the pitcher Moore thought he was getting, because that's the pitcher who arrived. Shields has made that trade work for Moore by giving the Royals presence and credibility for their pitching staff. In two years with the Royals, Shields has taken 34 starts each time, throwing 228 2/3 and 227 innings for ERAs of 3.15 and 3.21.

If all the Royals got in the trade were Shields, it was worth making. The Royals could not have made this long climb to the playoffs without him. The club definitely improved around Shields, but if the Royals hadn't made that move for a No. 1 starter, they would be the Milwaukee Brewers, sitting at home.

Then the Royals made the trade even better for themselves by figuring out what to do with Davis. The Royals originally tried Davis as a starter, and it wasn't for him. The Rays had already reached that conclusion, which is why all 54 of his appearances for them in 2012 came from the bullpen, but the Royals had to see for themselves. They saw a guy who posted a 5.32 ERA and couldn't get past the third inning.

Now Davis is the eighth-inning hold guy, throwing an ERA of 1.00. With Kelvin Herrera throwing 100 miles per hour in the seventh, Davis tossing a 1.00 in the eighth and Greg Holland throwing 46 saves in the ninth, the Royals are well set on the days when Shields doesn't pitch eight or nine innings.

Whatever happens in the wildcard game, the Shields trade already is a success for the Royals. They finally made it to the postseason. For the A's, an old postseason hand who barely made it to the playoffs this time, their trade to bring in Lester hasn't been everything they would want. And it might not ever be. But it still can become good enough rather quickly.

A's made the trades, Angels made the pitches

The Angels put together a huge four-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics at Angel Stadium during Labor Day weekend, increasing their lead in the American League West to five games. The Angels heroes were pitchers, none of whom arrived with any fanfare this season.

Angels pitcher Jered Weaver doesn't have his fastball, but he has guts and guile, which was enough to defeat the heralded Oakland Athletics acquisition, Jon Lester, in a key game during the past weekend (Keith Allison, (UC International crop)/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).

By BILL PETERSON

Big Leagues in Los Angeles

The Angels begin the rest of their life today after building a five-game lead in the American League West with a remarkable four-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics at Angel Stadium during Labor Day weekend.

And if it wasn't the Angels who made such bold and celebrated moves for pitching this summer, it was the Angels who received pitching when it really counted. Either that, or the A's didn’t receive hitting when it really counted. We'll say it's the first, but we don't rule out the second.

It has become tiring to labor over the grand error made by Oakland general manager Billy Beane when he traded his left fielder and the anchor of his batting order, Yoenis Cespedes, to the Boston Red Sox for left-hander Jon Lester, who he really didn’t need. But the weekend in Anaheim brought that error into the sharpest possible focus.

The series began with the only truly dramatic game in the bunch, a 4-3 Angels victory in 10 innings on Aug. 28. The A's entered the night one game down in the division and had their best pitcher, Sonny Gray, on the mound. But Gray came a bit unglued in the second inning. Josh Hamilton, Howie Kendrick and Erick Aybar began the inning with consecutive singles, the last of those driving in Hamilton for the game's first run. Then, Gray threw two wild pitches to place Kendrick on third and Aybar on second. A two-out single by Gordon Beckham drove in both runners and gave the Angels a 3-0 lead.

The Angels, countering with struggling left-hander C.J. Wilson, held that lead until the fifth, when the A's began hitting line drives. A leadoff single by Brandon Moss, followed by Geovany Soto's double, gave the A's their first run, then Coco Crisp hit a line-drive single to knock in Soto. In the sixth, the A's tied the game, 3-3, on solo homer by Josh Donaldson.

So, it became a battle of bullpens. And the Angels, who have been rebuilding their bullpen throughout the season, won. Five Angels relievers combined for 4 1/3 scoreless, hitless innings. The Angels won it in short order in the bottom of the tenth against Oakland reliever Ryan Cook. Albert Pujols led off with a walk and took third as he hustled out a single to center field by Hamilton. Kendrick hit a sacrifice fly to right field to drive in Pujols.

We witnessed that night the start of a remarkable occurrence  – the first four out of 29 consecutive scoreless innings by the Athletics, the AL's top scoring team, against an Angels rotation that is aged, unheralded, under-manned – everything but a sure thing. 

The second game, played on Aug. 29, was the definitive game. Not quite as improbable as the third game, perhaps, but what the second game said is in the standings today. The A's sent Lester, the guy for whom they spent heavily to win just this game, against Angels right-hander Jered Weaver, who is doing it all now with guts and guile. It was barely a fair fight.

The A's didn't reach base until Donaldson hit a double with two out in the fourth. They didn't get another hit until Sam Fuld's single with one out in the sixth. By then, the Angels had all the runs they needed, those coming on Chris Inannetta's two-run homer with no one out in the fifth after Aybar led off against Lester with a single. 

When the Angels batted in the bottom of the sixth, we could see the A's come apart at the seams. Watching the wheels come off of a baseball team is never a pretty sight, but the A's flailed all the way through August and it was just a matter of time. That time came with two out and nobody on, when Donaldson, the A's best player, made a fielding error allowing Kendrick to reach. Next, Eric Sogard, playing out of position at shortstop, made a throwing error, moving Kendrick to third and allowing the hitter, David Freese, to reach second base. Aybar then dropped a bunt in front of Lester and reached first base to load the bases. Flustered, Lester walked Iannetta for force in a run and give the Angels a 3-0 lead.

Pujols homered to make it 4-0 after seven innings, at which point Weaver departed, having allowed only three hits. Joe Smith and Huston Street finished out a 4-0 win the the Angels, giving them a robust three-game lead.

The importance of that game for the Angels can hardly be over-stated. They went to the third game of the series now assured that they would end the series with the division lead, even though their pitching plan for the third game – "the Garrett Richards start" that they will forever be trying to fill – was not one to inspire great confidence. That plan was Cory Rasmus, a reliever not even approximately stretched out for a start. The A's would go with Jeff Samardzija, famously acquired from the Chicago Cubs this summer.

No one could have or should have predicted that the team pitching Rasmus would beat the team pitching Samardzija. But the team pitching Samardzija doesn't have any hitters now. Missing Cespedes is some of it, but not all. The A's three-headed catcher (Derek Norris, John Jaso and Steven Vogt) has hit a bit over its head. Donaldson still has decent numbers for the season (.259/.348/.471/.819), but he hasn't been a force since May 30, which ended with him at .285/.379/.561/.940. 

Then there's Crisp, the key and unsung player of the A's surge in 2012 and their continued excellence in 2013. The A's committed themselves to Crisp as their leadoff hitter and center fielder on June 14, 2012, putting Cespedes in left field. Crisp was batting .172 with a .466 OPS. The A's were 28-35. From that point forward, Crisp batted .296 with a .857 OPS. The A's went 66-33, charging from five games back with 10 days left in the season to overtake the Texas Rangers for the AL West title.

The 2013 season was more of the same. The A's spent the entire season either in front or very close to it and easily won the division by five games. Crisp, the leadoff center fielder, had a solid year, if not great, tacking up a 4.3 WAR. He led the club with 93 runs scored and gave the club a solid all-around presence.

Beane has mentioned, correctly, that the A's already were struggling offensively when they traded Cespedes at this year's non-waiver trading deadline, which further mystifies the Cespedes trade. But there's no mystery that the A's decline offensively can be indexed some bit to Crisp. From July 5 to today, Crisp is batting .183 with a .559 OPS. The A's actually peaked offensively on June 4 (.253/.340/.421/.761). From that point to now, they are .244/.311/.372/.683.

Perhaps, then, it's not such a huge surprise that eight Angels pitchers, led by a three-inning start by Rasmus, shut the A's out on three hits to beat Samardzija, 2-0. The A's mounted one threat, that against lefty reliever Michael Roth, in the fourth. A walk, a single and an intentional walk loaded the bass, then Athletics manager Bob Melvin pinch-hit right-handed Jonny Gomes for left-handed Josh Reddick and Angels manager Mike Scioscia brought in right-handed Yoslan Herrera for Roth. Herrera induced a ground ball on which Kendrick at second base made an outstanding play for a double play to end the inning.

And with Reddick out of the game, the Athletics were without a left-handed stick who might have punished the ensuing parade of right-handed Angels relievers. The Angels walked out of the game with a 2-0 win no one could have predicted or expected, as well as a four-game lead.

The final game, on Aug. 31, was icing on the cake, an easy 8-1 Angels win behind rookie right-hander Matt Shoemaker, this season's surprise sensation, who improved his marks to 14-4 and a 3.14 ERA with seven innings of five-hit, shutout pitching. The Angels sacked Athletics left-hander Scott Kazmir with six runs in the second inning. The A's finally scored in the eighth. Angels, 8-1.

With only three games left between the Angels and the A's (Sept. 22-24 in Oakland), the Angels now still have a two-game cushion even if the A's win all three, which means the A's still have to be two games better than the Angels against everyone else just to force a one-game playoff for the division title. None of that seems likely to happen, especially after the Angels exploded and the A's imploded during these last four games in Anaheim.