Thoughts for a Friday - Nine Games To Go

 Lots to talk about relative to our first place Cleveland Guardians.  

Reminds me of a funny story that I hope doesn't repeat itself with our baseball team.  A number of years ago, before they were national champions, the Indiana Hoosiers came to Ohio State to play the Buckeyes in football and, as fate had it, Indiana scored first, taking a 7-0 lead.  As the legend goes, during the TV timeout after the extra point, the Indiana coach had his entire team pose in front of the scoreboard that showed them being ahead of the Buckeyes.  I think the final score was like 63-7.  Let's hope we haven't poked the bear by beating the White Sox the last two days.

Thursday night brought us Texas losing at the end to Boston (good for us because it moved us further ahead of Texas and cemented Boston as the #2 wild card which might help us when we go to Boston next week).  It saw Murikami hit a 3-run homer in the first for Chicago's only runs against Detroit and Houston predictably beat up KC at home.    

The stage is set.

The Guardians are tied in the standings with the White Sox for the AL Central Title

They are two games ahead of Toronto for the Wild Card

They are two games ahead of Texas for the Wild Card

They are one game ahead of Houston for the 2nd seed in the AL

Obviously, the Guardians do not own the tiebreaker over Toronto or CWS but do own the tiebreaker over Texas and Houston.

You will read countless articles between now and the end of the season about playoff scenarios but scoreboard watching on Thursday night reminds me that there is only one certainty: if you keep winning good things will likely happen.  Happened in 2024. Happened in 2025.  Yes, Toronto and Chicago have easy schedules. Texas and Houston have similar schedules to Cleveland.  But you just have to keep winning.

So, let's go Guardians!  L

Let's hope the crowd is effective at giving us a big home field advantage this weekend and we use it.

Let's hope the boys play their best, most solid baseball of the year, batters work deeep in counts and pitchers get ahead early in counts and our hitters do what is necessary to score runs in picket fences with the occasional crocked numbers.

These are our boys of summer and, though we're moving into fall, more than anything else, I hope they keep making great memories for themselves and for us fans. Go Guardians!