A couple of weeks back, I moved from an apartment in the Northish part of Seattle to a house in the more Southern/Westish part of Seattle. It was a complete and total nightmare. I know this isn’t an original line of thinking, but moving is awful. Never move. If you don’t like where you live right now, do yourself a favor and get over it. Stay. Update your furniture, paint a wall or something, buy new stuff. Bring new and exciting items in to your residence, but never, under any circumstances, ever collect your belongings all together and move them to a different location. This is just something important that I needed to tell you.
A consequence of moving is that I was without television and internet and hot baseball news for quite some time. It’s a long and boring story but for many days I was disconnected from the World Wide Web and the outside, digital world. I’m back now, after a long hiatus, and holy shit the baseball standings sure are crazy! Indeed, this entire season has been pretty wild for a while now, and surprises are to be expected, but wow! This is really how things are going to be, huh? Chaos reigns? Randomness is the only constant in the Universe? Our lives are fortuitous coincidences devoid of meaning? Sounds good to me. Bring on the apocalypse. I hope there’s a 6-way tie for one of the final Wild Card spots and we’re watching play-in games until Halloween. So what exactly is going on here? As a way to catch myself up, why don’t we list out some of the currently contending teams and try to make sense of this mess? No, “sense” is probably the wrong word. Let’s try and comment on this mess. We’ll make some comments.
Texas Rangers
Ok, so there’s nothing unexpected or crazy about that. Great start.
Washington Nationals
They have the best record in all of baseball? I mean, I know there pitching is really awesome and everything, but didn’t Bryce Harper fall off a cliff? How do they even score any runs? Oh, you’re telling me Harper is back to being good now? And Jayson Werth returned from his injury to post an OBP over .400? And Danny Espinosa is awesome? That’s ridiculous. Has anyone figured that one out yet? Wait, they actually shut down Stephen Strasburg? You can’t be serious, I thought that was just some weird mind-game the Nationals were playing on their opponents. But for real, he’s just done? What are they going to do for the playoffs? Maybe use him as a pinch hitter? I realize I’ve been asking a lot of questions but we learned a lot of really good information there.
New York Yankees
Great record, a ton of talent, leading the division. I’m sure the New York media is just ecstatic about the team and making all sorts of plans for the post-season. Weird that there would be a quiet and boring September in New York, but I guess that’s what happens when you have a solid baseball team who does what’s expected of them.
St. Louis Cardinals
Really, I don’t get it. They’re so good. They’ve scored so many runs. What’s the problem? Please let them make the playoffs. Let there be justice in this world.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Ahahahahahhahahahaha.
Cincinnati Reds / San Francisco Giants
I put these two together because, hell, I don’t know, they’re both good baseball teams and it looks like they fared just fine without me. See you in October, fellas, I’ll try and have better material by then. Maybe do something stupid and/or funny in the meantime. Give Tim Lincecum a microphone and have him say the F word a few times. That would work. Just a thought.
Chicago White Sox
This baseball team beat the Detroit Tigers baseball team today and are now three games ahead in the division. That’s rather remarkable. Adam Dunn and Alex Rios: I suppose we should just stop trying to pretend we know anything about baseball whatsoever.
Pittsburgh Pirates
🙁
Milwaukee Brewers / Philadelphia Phillies
This is seriously insane. Both of these teams were toast two weeks ago. If there’s anything that properly encapsulates the utter chaos of the 2012 season, it’s two well-talented pre-season favorites completely imploding early on, subsequently moving a great deal of star power to other baseball teams, only to catch blazing, white-hot fire down the stretch and contend (probably) in vain for a final Wild Card spot. Oh man, there are a ton of blown saves that went down before the All-Star break for fans of these teams to dwell on in a really depressing way. Baseball!
Baltimore Orioles
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Oakland Athletics
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Go Orioles. Go Athletics.
Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.
