At the beginning of the season, the chic pick to win the AL West was the Seattle Mariners, mainly because of their off-season acquisition of pitcher Cliff Lee, who was outstanding in the post-season for the Phillies last year. Well, Lee is leading his team to the division crown after all, except that team is the Texas Rangers instead of Seattle. The Rangers pulled off a major surprise when they grabbed Lee when all indications were that a trade was minutes away from completion that would’ve sent him to the Yankees. Seattle has long since fallen off the radar screen in the division race, while the young Oakland A’s have kept pace with the other favorite to win the division, the Los Angeles Angels. However, neither the A’s or Angels are close enough to catch Texas, or even be players in the wild card race, especially with the Yanks and Rays running neck and neck in the AL East. The Rangers have an interesting team with some good young players, and the addition of Vladimir Guerrero’s bat in the off-season was a major boost. I don’t like their chances of doing much in the playoffs, however. After Lee, their pitching is suspect. They are going to have to outslug their opponents to win, and in the post-season pitching and defense usually rule and runs are harder to come by. Guerrero would have to come up big and he has never really been a big post-season producer. Adding Lee and Jorge Cantu has helped them rise to the top of the AL West, but unfortunately I think this division is one of baseball’s weakest these days, and I don’t see the Rangers winning in the playoffs, other than the games Lee pitches.
MLB – Rangers Pull Away In AL West
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Aug