At this point, we can be pretty certain of the identities of nine of the ten teams that will proceed to the post-season. The murkiest situation is in the AL Central, where the White Sox hold a two game lead on the Tigers. However, all but one of Detroit's remaining games are against Minnesota and Kansas City. The White Sox have to play the Angels and Tampa Bay seven times before this thing is over. I wouldn't count the Tigers out just yet.

At last, at long last, the end is here. The third and final installment of The Replacements, which covers all the relief pitchers who were added to the roster in mid-season.

Congratulations to the regular season champs: W-A-M-C-O in the Alomar Division, Yonge St Bomber in Barfield and the Chilean Grasshoppers in Carter. .

The end is near. It's part two of the Replacements. This installment covers the starting pitchers who were called into service after the season was underway.

And now we look at the Replacements, the men who were summoned to join the team in mid-season.

The bullpen, gang. The bullpen.

Not enormously interested in the bench, were you. But you've been waiting for this one!

The starting pitchers, boys and girls.

Time to consider the bench.

Moving right along... the outfielders and the DH.

I'm enjoying this, even as I feel the collective wisdom of the readership leaning on me to revise some planned grades upward.

We'll see whether you can move me!

You know it's coming.

And it's not going to be pretty.

It has been a roller-coaster ride for Blue Jay fans this season.  There were the highs of the early season when the Jays were at the top of the division and able to take on all challengers.  Now the Jays wins are few and expectations are low.  The Jays record in August was 9-19, a 52 win season pace.  But the Jays won four of their last five games in the month, two in New York and two against Tampa.  From August 1 through August 25 the Jays record was 5-18, a 35 win season pace.  Now the Jays have started September 0-3 and there is little expectation of a win on any night.

Help make the tenth annual survey a success by providing your opinion on  fielders.

http://www.tangotiger.net/scout/

Last month, I received an invitation to a meeting of the Northwest Chapter of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) at Nat Bailey Stadium and one of the guest speakers was Vancouver Canadians pitcher Matt Johnson.  He shared some interesting stories about his baseball career.

Vancouver Canadians righthander Matt Johnson taking a breather after speaking at the August 11 SABR meeting at Nat Bailey Stadium.

There was discussion in the Bronx Therapy thread about the correlation between the Yankees reliably high total of walks and their reliably high total of runs scored.