Marlins Spoil Royals Week
Just before the red-hot Kansas City Royals were to play a huge five game series with the American League Central leading Detroit Tigers, they had to face the lowly Miami Marlins three times at home, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. In football, there is an expression for the game that comes up the week before your “big game” comes up. It’s called “getting caught looking ahead.” Many times you see a team play poorly the week before they play a big game. You don’t see that too much in baseball because teams play so many games that any one game is about like another.
But the Royals may have got caught looking ahead this week. It would be understandable as the Marlins are really bad, and not even in the same league and they came in right before a four day, five game series with the Tigers. The bad news is the games against Miami count just as much as the ones with the Tigers, and the Royals lost two of them. It was the first series loss for the Royals in over a month.
The Royals now enter the series with the Tigers 7.5 games back. Had they beaten the Marlins all three, they would be within 5.5 and would really have a shot to put a dent into the lead. Now, if they take four of five, they will still be down by 4.5 games. They also lost a game in the division standings to the Cleveland Indians who took two of three from the Minnesota Twins. The Indians now trail by 6 games and will be pulling for the Royals this weekend.
The Indians will have a tough series over the weekend with the A. L. West contending Oakland A’s. The A’s are two games back of the Texas Rangers in the division. The A’s right now would make the playoffs and visit the Tampa Bay Rays in the A. L. Wild Card game. But there are may teams, including the Indians and Royals, right on their heels for a wild card spot. The Baltimore Orioles are 2.5 games behind  the A’s with the Indians 3 back and the Royals 4.5. The suddenly hot New York Yankees are nor only 5 behind the A’s.
The Yankees have a big three game series at Fenway Park this weekend with the A. L. East leading Boston Red Sox. This weekend in the American League is going to be a lot of fun with all these contenders playing each other.
The Orioles and Rays will be taking on sub .500Â teams with the O’s taking on the Colorado Rockies and the Rays battling the Toronto Blue Jays. If those two can take care of business, they will be gaining ground on somebody every day. If not, they’ll be losing ground to somebody as well.
This is a great time of year to be a baseball fan. This time of year, even teams like the Marlins, Rockies and Blue Jays can have an effect on the pennant races. Teams will be playing their hardest and it should be a lot of fun to watch
