MLB Weekend Preview

With baseball's regular season winding down, the playoff situation, for the most part, is clearing up. With three weeks remaining, every first-place team leads its division by at least four games. But there is some uncertainty, in the NL Wild Card race, for example, and where playoff-bound teams are jockeying for seedings. Here's a quick look at a couple of this weekend's series with playoff implications.

The New York Yankees, the best team in baseball so far this season, head West for three games in Seattle with the Mariners. And down in Tinseltown the NL's best, the Los Angeles Dodgers, host their chums to the north, the San Francisco Giants, for a three-game set.

The Yanks started 13–15 this season, but have played .684 ball (80-37) since. After beating the LA Angels in a make-up game Monday 5-3, New York leads the Boston Red Sox by 7.5 games in the AL East, which puts their magic number at 12, with 17 games left on their schedule. The Yanks also lead the Angels by six games in the race for the best record in the American League.

Seattle tried to get into the AL Wild Card race this summer, but could never quite put any substantial run together. They were four games above .500 at the All-Star break, and they've gone 28-28 since. After taking two of three games from the Rangers in Texas over the weekend, and heading into a three-game series at home with the Chicago White Sox starting Tuesday, the Mariners trail Boston by 11 games in the AL Wild Card race, and are 12 games back of the Angels in the AL West.

Still, at 74-70, Seattle has a good shot to finish above .500 this year, a season after losing 101 games.

The Bombers have taken five of seven games from the Ms so far this year.

With 93 wins as of Tuesday, New York needs two more to go over their Oddsmaker.com season wins over/under of 94.5.

And with 74 wins, Seattle is already over their wins total of 73.

As of Tuesday morning the Yankees are listed as +100 favorites to win the AL pennant at Oddsmaker.com, and +175 favorites to win their first World Series title since 2000.

Through Monday's play, the totals are 58-80 in Mariners games this season, 30-37 in games played at Safeco Field.

Los Angeles just took two of three games from the Giants in San Francisco over the weekend, outscoring them 21-11 in the process. And on the season the Dodgers have taken nine of 15 games from their historical rivals.

The Giants won the opener of a big home series with the Colorado Rockies on Monday 9-1, pulling to within 3.5 games of the first-place Rocks in the NL Wild Card standings.

Los Angeles opened a three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday with a 6-2 victory. So going into Tuesday's action the Dodgers lead Colorado by four games in the NL West, and own a magic number of 14, with just 17 games to go.

The Giants have had problems scoring all season, ranking 27th in the majors at 4.0 runs per game and 29th in team OPS at .697. And they've been held to three or fewer runs in nine of their last 13 games.

San Fran also ranks second in the majors in both team ERA and team WHIP. Consequently, the totals are 59–74 in Giants games this year.

The Dodgers lead the majors in both ERA and WHIP, which has helped their over/under go 61-72 this year. The totals are also 29-37 in games played at Chavez Ravine.

As of Tuesday morning Oddsmaker.com is listing LA at +300 to win the NL pennant, and +800 to win the World Series, while the Giants are being offered at +2,500 to win the league championship and +5,000 to win the Series.

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