Forget the last few months, the Baseball Season proper starts in August -

There are, as you can guess by our name, plenty of baseball nerds in the UK. However, there are also many non-nerds for whom the first week of August represents the “proper” start of the baseball season.

The sometimes arduous 162-game season has a little less than one-third of the campaign remaining – each team has roughly 50 games left – and we’ve reached a point where the games are really starting to matter.

Nothing has yet been decided, so the playoff picture could change on a weekly basis, especially with 20 teams still in with a shot of October baseball.

How did I get to 20 teams? The Tampa Bay Rays are 10th in the American League, but only five games back of a Wild Card spot. And in the National League, the St Louis Cardinals – yes, I know it seems completely implausible – have a .496 winning percentage.

Don’t forget that on 1 August, 2021, the Atlanta Braves were below .500 with a 52-54 record, but after a stunning stretch in August and September, they not only made the postseason, but defeated Houston to clinch the World Series.

It’s still simply incredible that a team below .500 at the start of August won the World Series.

The usual suspects of the Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, Athletics, and Washington Nationals are obviously not playoff bound, but any team that is hovering around .500, still has the possibility of postseason baseball.

Every year we seem to rewrite baseball records, so perhaps we are in store for another mind-boggling final-third of the season. Even if we only see battles between the top seven or eight in each league, then given the extra importance of each series, this is when baseball gets exciting.

American League

The Red Sox have compiled a tidy five-game win streak to mount pressure on the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees, and at the same time, the Tampa Bay Rays are spluttering out of contention with only two victories in their last 10 games. It would not be a surprise to see three of these teams in the postseason.

With a 97% projection of clinching the division, the Detroit Tigers are so much better than the rest of the AL Central, they could almost give Tarik Skubal a couple of months’ vacation until the playoffs start. The Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians safely negotiated trade deadline dilemmas of whether to buy or sell, and they both know that a Wild Card spot is up for grabs if they can produce a sustained run of good performances.

The Houston Astros sit on top of the AL West, but it’s unclear whether they are simply a brilliant and resilient franchise with an ability to weather the storm of an unreal number of stars on the IL or if they are negligent with so many players picking up injuries. Is five starting pitchers on the IL having undergone Tommy John surgery bad luck or bad management? Either way, it is remarkable that the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers are currently trailing in their wake.

One thing that cannot be denied is that at least one team out of the sextet of Blue Jays, Red Sox, Yankees, Mariners, Rangers, or Astros will finish the regular season distraught.

I’m already feeling tense about the climax of the AL East and AL West.

National League

Preseason, there was little to choose from between the three juggernauts of the NL East, and most people suspected that the Braves were the “best of the rest” in the National League behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, the Braves have capitulated in a way that no one foresaw, allowing the Phillies and Mets to slug it out like two heavyweight boxers with nothing between them.

The Cubs, with an extraordinary +115 run differential and the Brewers (+119) flip-flop between first and second in the NL Central. Barring a catastrophic collapse, these two teams with the best records in the NL will be in the playoffs.

The Dodgers took the division lead on 28 April and the rest was boringly predictable. However, the Padres are only three games behind, yet they are currently the most precarious of the teams in the Wild Card spots.

If the season ended today (American League version)

AL West: Astros (62-50)
AL Central: Tigers (65-48)
AL East: Blue Jays (65-48)
Wild Card Series matchups: Astros (3) v Mariners (6)
Wild Card Series matchups: Red Sox (4) v Yankees (5)

Just missed: Rangers (2 games back), Royals and Guardians (3 games back). The Rays are currently 5 games out of a Wild Card spot).

If the season ended today (National League version)

NL West: Dodgers (65-47)
NL Central: Brewers (67-44)
NL East: Phillies (63-48)
Wild Card Series matchups: Phillies (3) v Padres (6)
Wild Card Series matchups: Cubs (4) v Mets (5)

Just missed: Reds (4 games back), Giants and Marlins (6 games back).

A Red Sox vs. Yankees Wild Card Series is a mouthwatering prospect already.

I know that many baseball fans have enjoyed the regular season since 18 March when the Dodgers took on the Cubs in Japan, but for me, it is the start of August when baseball switches up a gear and I get genuinely excited.

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