Wild and Crazy

This is the time in the baseball season when a history with Saturday Night Live is appropriate. The Rivercats started today, after a day off, 5 games up over the Tuscon Sidewinders and with a magic number of 21 to win the Southern Division and eventually go on to either the Pacific Division finals or to the whole championship for the PCL.

Near the end of the season the cats add and subtract like rabbits - thus we added a couple of new folks and moved a couple of Cats staples down so that the 150+ moves of the season would be added to. Remember at the end of the season that will happen even more so we might get to 175 moves for the season by the end of the month.

Last night's game started out with the Cats going ahead 1-0 - then it was tied up at 2, then the Cats went way out in front. In the intervening time I went to the gym to work out and as I was leaving tuned in to hear that the tying runs were on base in the bottom of the ninth - the Las Vegas 51s (the Dodger's affiliate) was about to break it out). Fortunately, the Cats did a double play which won the game 9-7.

The Sidewinders won last night also so the magic number drops to 20. This is a long road swing which will last until the 22d when we meet Fresno (which is currently in third in the division). A lot can happen before then. At one point one of the three teams will falter. When they come back they host Fresno for four and then Colorado Springs for four before ending the season in Tucson. Thus eight of their last 12 games are played against teams that could have a shot at the division.

As I think I said earlier in the season this team has a bit more heart than last year's club even with the tremendous number of moves so the odds are currently pretty good that the Cats will go on to the postseason. What is unclear is whether any team can beat Nashville which has the best record in the league.