MLB: Handicapping the AL West Division Race

Vlad a key in race

That also means that any edge, even the slightest one, could make the difference in that division race. To that end, each team’s schedule for the remaining two months of the regular season could go a long way in determining their playoff chances. And with none of the AL West teams playing well above or below .500 at home or on the road this year, we can mostly dismiss the splits and look just at the actual matchups to come.

So who has the toughest road to travel over the next eight weeks? That’d be the Los Angeles Angels. Floundering in the division basement earlier in the season the Angels have hit their stride in recent weeks, and are now pegged by many as the favorite to walk away with the AL West in 2006. However, in order to grab the division title the Angels are going to have to come up big versus an onslaught of the AL’s best teams.

Of Los Angeles’ 18 series combined in August and September, nine of them are against fellow AL West teams, while another six are against the rest of the league’s best (two versus the Yankees, one each versus the Tigers, White Sox, Red Sox, and Blue Jays). The Angels also have a makeup game on their sched in early August - and that contest happens to be against the White Sox too. That’s a lot of high-stakes action coming up.

The Angels’ only three sets against the AL’s patsies are versus Cleveland, Baltimore, and Kansas City. In contrast, the Oakland Athletics have two series against Tampa Bay, and one each against Kansas City, Baltimore, and Cleveland over the next two months. The A’s also play nine series against AL West foes, but only have to face the rest of the league’s top dogs four times (once each for Toronto, Boston, Minnesota, and Chicago).

That definitely gives the A’s an edge over the Angels; two series against the Devil Rays are not quite as daunting as two against a possibly-desperate Yankees team. And with the division packed so tightly all season long an easy win or two versus a patsy could end up being what separates the division winner from the team that goes home early.

The Texas Rangers will be seeing a lot of the other AL West teams over the next two months; they play 11 series versus the A’s, Angels, and Mariners the rest of the way. That leaves them only three sets against the tougher teams (two against Detroit, one against Minnesota), and four versus the bottom feeders (two against Cleveland, one each against Baltimore and Tampa Bay). That’s still a bit better than the Angels’ sched.

And while the Seattle Mariners look like the biggest longshot to win the AL West, they do get to play two sets against Tampa Bay, one against Kansas City, and another against Baltimore over the next two months. The M’s, like Oakland and Los Angeles, have nine series against other AL West teams, and they have one series against each of the Yankees, Tigers, White Sox, Red Sox, and Blue Jays left on their 2006 schedule.

To sum up, then, here’s a breakdown of each of the four American League West’s clubs’ August and September series schedules (note that the makeup game against the Chicago White Sox has been excluded from the Los Angeles Angels’ totals in the list):

Oakland Athletics

Los Angeles Angels

Texas Rangers

Seattle Mariners