Big Bear Nolan's Blog

1. Cleveland Guardians (57-59) at Chicago White Sox (59-55)

The battle for the AL Central will only get messier after this series is done. Chicago took a 3 game lead over the Guardians after Cleveland was swept at home to the lowly Mets. The White Sox also got swept again to the Boston Red Sox, so if someone wants to end the year at the top of the division with the Twins playing the No. 1 team in baseball this weekend. A win for either one of the Guardians or White Sox would be a start.

2. Atlanta Braves (70-45) at New York Yankees (64-51)

It is now or never Yankees. After a series loss to the Cardinals that followed an abysmal trade deadline for the Pinstripes, New York not only saw the Rays climb higher in the standings but the team below them in the Red Sox continue to creep up. Now the Yanks get a Braves team that has begun to find its stride and officially passed the Dodgers for the second best record in the league right now. Big series between two juggernauts will take place at the Bronx this weekend.

3. Minnesota Twins (57-59) at Milwaukee Brewers (72-43)

An abysmal week outside of adding three pitchers at the trade deadline didn’t do much to hamper Minnesota as their 4-3 win to salvage the finale at Kansas City last night has the Twins sitting just 0.5 back of the Wildcard and 3 out in the Division (owning the tiebreaker to Cleveland 6-4). Now the Twins get to travel to their rivals to the east in Milwaukee who has been rolling with the best record in baseball. Despite the daunting challenge that is ahead of the Twins, Minnesota did make Milwaukee sweat in the first round of the Border Battle back in May when the Brewers took the series with a pair of one-run wins. The Twins are also getting their No. 2 prospect called up in SS Kaelen Culpepper. Brewers however between the duo of 21-year old rookies in Cooper Pratt and Luis Lara have continued to impress. This series could be more interesting then one might think.

4. Los Angeles Dodgers (69-46) at Arizona Diamondbacks (61-55)

What do you do when you get Tarik Skubal and make the whole baseball world think it’s ending? You follow that up with 6 straight losses. No, teams should not do that but that is what is happening to the Dodgers. The Mighty Dodgers after back to back sweeps now sit with the third best record in the NL and is beginning to see a commanding lead in their division shrink. Now LA gets to go to Arizona who just swept the Dodgers in their last series at Dodger Stadium. Will this all most likely be just like last year again where LA gets healthy at the right time and makes a run in the Postseason? probably, but they got to wake up now because you also don’t want to lose ground.

5. Houston Astros (59-57) at San Diego Padres (60-56)

If you told me at the beginning of the season would this matchup be between Playoff contenders everyone would probably say yes. But I don’t know if everyone could have predicted this would be where they are. Houston holds just a 1.5 game lead in the wild AL West and San Diego is a game below in the NL Wildcard race. Both have been playing better recently and it is at the right time.

(You can find the complete standings for yourself here at MLB.com)