If we have any chance of contending we need a major winning stretch AND we need some help from other teams.

Today we have some chance to gain ground on an off day because for once several teams ahead of us in the wildcard race are playing teams either out of it or likely to win division titles.

Yankees vs Tigers, Nova vs Verlander. Good matchup for our purposes. Again, we want a Yankees win.

Mariners vs Orioles. We couldn't beat Seattle, hopefully they beat up on the O's too :)

Rangers vs Red Sox, Darvish vs Cook. This would be a GREAT time for Darvish to regain his form. And for Hamilton to hit two dingers.

Angels vs A's pick your poison. 50/50 on that one.

Mathematically they have a chance, realistically they have 0.

Hey look, about three times in the last two weeks I'd decided "they're out of it, I give up"

But they keep rebounding. At this point I know it's very unlikely they make it. But at this point I'd even be excited to see them finish strong and 2-3 games out, because it would be exciting if the games mattered that last couple of weeks.

True.. but our competitors have flaws:

ANGELS:
Bad bullpen, lack of offensive depth after Trout, Trumbo and Pujols. Even with a .271 AVG, it's mostly inflated by those three players.
Questionable starting pitching after Weaver, even though Haren is healthy. Grienke is no guarantee to succeed in the AL--as we saw vs. the Rangers. C.J. Wilson's struggling as well.

A's:
Best pitching in the AL--but their offense is still the worst in the AL.(.229 AVG) However, they have power. (14th in HR) Ryan Cook also needs to find consistency, after several recent blown saves.

TIGERS:
Pitching issues after Verlander and Fister, but they have the advantage of having a schedule which includes most of the cruddy AL Central(excluding Chicago)

RAYS:
Do they ever need offense! Even Longoria might not help. They need to start hitting more--not all teams are going to hand them BBs all the time. They also strike out too much. Pitching is the only thing keeping them in the race.

ORIOLES:
Too many strikeouts, bad defense.. and yet they're within distance of a playoff spot due to their power and decent bullpen offsetting a questionable rotation.

RED SOX:
Bad starting pitching outside of Buchholz, inconsistent offense with no Ortiz around. And how much does Aceves have left in the tank?(he pitched 55 games last year, and is already at 51.)

I don't care what raysjays says, I want the Angels to pull out a win tonight.

Knowing the Jays, it seems likely that they will lose this series to Tampa.

I dont think we have one a series against Tampa in the last couple season

Shields is pitching the first game, there's no way we win.

Ug. Shields does tend to own our lineup. Hopefully Gose, Cooper, Hech and Sierra are unaware of that. :)

It won't matter if the Rays bats keep laying goose eggs. They had great pitching vs. Baltimore--and the Rays got shut out twice. They've been struggling to score runs for a while.

Yep. And that's one of the things that makes all these injuries all the more frustrating this year. All of these AL East teams are beatable this year. More beatable than usual, especially Boston and Tampa.

It doesn't matter. You and everyone else knows what happens to the Jays in Tampa. You should expect the Rays to score 15-20 runs this series.

I see Happ getting pulled by the 4th inning.

So far not good. Orioles and Red Sox both winning.

Dagnabbit

Cleveland Indians LOL.. pitching so inept, it knocked them out of the playoff race!

12-1 Minnesota right now. Morneau with 2 HRs.

Yankees tie the game up 2-2 on a Fielder error.

Yep Indians are in full freefall mode

AA call em up and get us Masterson

Tigers winning too.

Consarnit!

Boston's pretty far back anyway. We're waiting to see what happens with Detroit and Oakland/L.A.

Not anymore. Yankees tied the ballgame.

Darvish not looking sharp tonight at all.

3-1 Sox.