A Two Team Race
On July 14th I received the following e-mail from my brother (a Cubs fan):

"This town sucks baseball-wise. Both teams. My only hope is Dusty. I suspect 3 games out is nothing new to Dusty. Still, the talent is questionable. They need to add a bat or two, but I'm not hopeful now that Lowell is off the market. I wouldn't put too much confidence in the Sox either. Do the math. Assume KC only goes .500 the rest of the way (and I think they will probably play a little, not much, but a little bit better than .500). 41-27. Not likely given their performance to date. Not a pretty picture."

I responded that I didn't think KC would play .500 ball. But I did give KC a 50% chance of winning the division. I thought there was 25% chance the Sox would catch them and a 25% chance the Twins would catch them. I thought I was going out on a limb with those odds. I don't care what time a year it is, a 7 game lead looks big. But it turns out that both teams caught the Royals. It didn't even take that long as the Sox made up 7 by games Friday, August 1st. The Royals fought back for a short time but now it looks like they are done for good, 3 games back of both the Sox and Twins. Their records since the break:

Twins 32-17
Sox 31-17
Royals 22-28

At this point it looks like the Royals will end up right at .500, which I think they would have been happy about at the start of the season. But right now I'm sure it stings.