With two-and-a-half weeks to go in the regular season, there is but one true chase for a division title, and it resides in the American League East, where three teams still have hope of claiming the crown. The standings, as of Wednesday morning: Boston up by two games over Toronto and Baltimore, which are tied for the two AL wild-card spots.
Though September is a time when the best fans can hope for is to have a chance, it’s also a time for enormous pessimism. Watch a team all summer and you can forget to appreciate what makes it good. Rather, the fans who have endured 140-plus games have long since been able to identify areas about which they should panic.
There is an excellent chance that the two teams that miss out on the AL East title will face each other in the one-game wild-card playoff. But here is the focus of each fan base’s angst, fairly or not.
Boston Red Sox: John Farrell, manager
David Price would have been a candidate for this spot, but his last seven starts have yielded seven Boston wins, a 2.16 ERA and never more than two earned runs in an outing. Clay Buchholz is constantly a candidate, but before a six-run meltdown against Toronto, he had actually settled into some sort of stability as he toggled between the rotation and the bullpen with a 2.05 ERA over six appearances.
Pablo Sandoval has long since been forgotten for 2016. Slumping Travis Shaw could be replaced by promising prospect Yoan Moncada. The bullpen has stabilized in the second half of the season. David Ortiz is a monster in his final year. Dustin Pedroia is raking. The young core of Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr. et al gives Boston a foundation well into the future.
What could Red Sox fans worry about?
Even with three World Series titles in the past dozen seasons, there is hand-wringing in Boston over every decision. And so often this year, the man making the decisions is Farrell, the fourth-year manager and former pitching coach.
Farrell began his managerial tenure in Boston by winning the World Series in 2013. Yet he followed that with two last-place finishes, and when there was regime change for the Red Sox – with Dave Dombrowski taking over the baseball operations department and former general manager Ben Cherington opting to depart – he hung on, but tenuously.
Earlier in the season, as the Red Sox struggled to find their footing, every Farrell decision was questioned, every answer parsed – how he used his bullpen, how he constructed his lineup, how he conducted himself off the field. On Aug. 11, the Red Sox were 61-52 and in third place. Since, they have gone 20-11 to shoot into first, allaying all sorts of fears. Stumble even once, and the manager will bear the brunt of the discontent.
Toronto Blue Jays: Josh Donaldson, third baseman
This seems unfair to put the reigning MVP, who is a legitimate MVP candidate again, into such a tenuous spot. But Tuesday, Donaldson missed his second straight game with a hip issue. And that merely saved him from himself, because as the Blue Jays dropped seven of 10 games to fall from first place, the anchor of what should be an explosive offense showed his first signs of fragility.
On Aug. 17, Donaldson and Manager John Gibbons grew heated in the dugout after Donaldson slammed his bat in frustration following a strikeout. Since then, the Blue Jays have gone 10-13 to cede first place to the Red Sox. Donaldson, though, followed that spat with a 12-game hitting streak in which he hit six homers, so he fit nicely as part of the solution, not the problem.
There is, though, some concern over Donaldson’s last seven games, in which he has gone 0 for 23 with eight walks and seven strikeouts. His average in that span fell from .297 to .284, his OPS from .985 to .952.
Toronto has concerns about slugger Jose Bautista, who is in the last year of his contract, has slumped all season and has only one extra-base hit in September. Melvin Upton Jr. hasn’t been an offensive solution. Would-be ace Aaron Sanchez has a blister on a finger that means the ineffective R.A. Dickey must start again at some point this weekend in Anaheim.
But Donaldson is the engine that makes Toronto go. If he’s slowed – by injury or slump – the tension of a pennant race will be harder to endure across Canada.
Baltimore Orioles: Wade Miley, left-hander
On or about the trade deadline, Ubaldo Jimenez would have been the easy choice of Camden Yards faithful for this spot, what with Jimenez’s 7.06 ERA. When the Orioles acquired Miley from Seattle at the deadline, Jimenez was bumped to the bullpen. He has now returned to the rotation and over four starts (three Baltimore victories) posted a 2.83 ERA and .160 average against.
So turn your angst to Miley, Baltimore. Miley’s final start before the trade was seven innings of one-run ball with nine strikeouts against the Cubs. Now, the Orioles would kill for just one of those outings – against anybody. After Monday’s disaster in Boston, in which he recorded four outs and was charged with six earned runs, his eight-start stint with the Orioles has yielded an 8.41 ERA, a .351 batting average against and a horrifying 1.868 WHIP.
Should he be allowed to make even one more turn? Given the nature of the race, each game is crucial. His next start would be scheduled for a home series against Tampa this weekend, a series in which the O’s would do well to take three of four. The Orioles’ have other issues – slugger Mark Trumbo’s .182 average in the second half, a formerly reliable bullpen that has the American League’s second-worst ERA since the all-star break. But more than anything, each Miley start, at this point, feels like a day Baltimore will lose ground when it needs to gain it.