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With A Week To Go, Very Little Has Been Settled

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By CARTER GADDIS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 23, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - With a week to go, very little is settled. Even after 25 weeks, most of the invitations to baseball's postseason party are still on hold.

'If you look at some of these races right now,' said Devil Rays adviser Don Zimmer, 'it sure looks like somebody's going to wind up tied.'

Zimmer knows a thing or two about finishing a regular season tied. He managed the Boston Red Sox in 1978.

That was the year the Yankees overcame a 14 1/2 -game deficit to force the Sox into a one-game playoff for the American League East championship.

'That was probably one of the most thrilling days I ever had in baseball,' Zimmer said. 'You go to Fenway Park on Monday morning to play one game for the whole ball of wax. That was something that was very special.

'Naturally, the biggest disappointment was losing.'

Those Red Sox didn't have a wild-card berth to fall back on. This year's version does.

And a good thing, too.

Like the '78 Yankees, this year's Bronx Bombers once trailed the Red Sox in the division by 14 1/2 games. In fact, on May 29, New York was 21-29 and tied with the Devil Rays for last place in the division.

The Yankees are not in last place any more. Not that the Red Sox have let that bother them.

Much.

'The division title means a lot, but it means nothing as far as winning a World Series,' Red Sox manager Terry Francona told reporters this past week in Toronto. 'It means a lot for what you set out to accomplish, I think. I don't think there's any getting around that and I don't think we want to. But when it's all said and done, it won't have any bearing on how far we get into the postseason.'

The Mets, who led the Phillies in the NL East by seven games on Sept. 12, can't say the same. With Arizona and San Diego duking it out in the NL West - and rapidly turning the NL wild-card berth into NL West property - the loser of the Mets-Phils race could very well find itself on the outside looking in.

The Mets never quite had the stranglehold on their division that the Red Sox seemed to have at midsummer, but neither did the Phillies and Braves seem capable of stringing together enough victories (or staying healthy enough) to mount a meaningful challenge.

Should New York fail to win its division, it would become the first team to lead by seven games as late as it did and not finish in first place. Only two teams - the 1934 Giants and 1938 Pirates - have ever led by seven games in September and not finished in first.

The Mets would have only themselves to blame. And the turning points are easy to spot: a four-game sweep by the Phillies in August and a three-game sweep by the Phillies this month.

The theoretical advantage seems to rest with the Mets, who finish at home against the bottom-dwelling Nationals and Marlins, with a makeup game squeezed in Thursday against the fading Cardinals.

Meanwhile, Tampa native Lou Piniella could celebrate an NL Central championship in his home state this week as the Cubs travel to South Florida to face the Marlins. In Piniella's first season with Chicago, his team has gone from the low of trailing the Brewers by 8 1/2 games on June 23 to the high of occupying the top spot heading into the final week.

The Brewers face the prospect of having to keep pace with the Cubs without staff ace Ben Sheets (mild hamstring strain). And, even though Milwaukee is at home to finish the season, the Brewers face an uphill battle with four games against the Padres.

In a way, even though the schedule says there's a week left in the regular season, for these teams the playoffs already have begun.

'This is the time of year,' Zimmer said, 'when guys go to the ballpark and can't wait to get there.'

Reporter Carter Gaddis can be reached at (813) 259-8291 or igaddis@tampatrib.com.

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