The MLB season is finally getting its way to the end. September begins tomorrow and it’s generally accepted that some teams might be able to make last-second pushes into the playoffs, especially in some divisions. This year, there will be some divisions that are pretty well locked up. It’s going to be the Wild Card positions that are much better in terms of competition. Are you ready for some Wild Card fun? This is going to be one of the most interesting years for that. The NL Wild Card is interesting already, with Colorado and San Francisco among those going toe-to-toe right now. We’ll have to watch for these teams and perhaps some others to start making it exciting throughout the month. Are you ready? The Wild Card is going to be a lot of fun for us.

The Boston Red Sox have been hoping to send a player away to the New York Mets. Chris Carter was in AAA Pawtucket and was brought up to be sent off. But suddenly the Yankees have put in a claim on him. This may be actually an important thing, or it might be an issue of the team trying to give Boston some 40 player roster problems. Boston is trying to pull themselves up by the bootstraps into playoff contention. But it’s been a very difficult time for them this year, with some players that are normally very good but have underperformed this year. For whatever reason, the team has to keep Carter on their roster now and that gives the team some big problems. Only a few more weeks and we’ll have a good idea whether they are able to climb back up or if the Bronx Bombers are still at the top!

No, I’m not writing about the singer. Johan Santana is in a bit of a tough situation right now. His elbow has been injured on and off for some time. And it’s been hard for them to get a decent diagnosis on it. It’s possible that, if it’s as serious as it could be, he might need to have some surgery to repair this joint as he moves forwards. If he does this soon, he could be ready for the team next spring. It’s going to be hard to figure it all out. The Mets are upset now because this great pitcher might be lost to them for awhile now. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, and with the Mets up the track this season, they might as well get the surgery done, if he needs it.

One of the most interesting discussions in the MLB today is about pitching mechanics. One of the topics that keeps coming up is the Inverted W, which is a type of pitching in which a person’s elbows are above shoulder height when they make pitches. This is a problem for many pitchers, because it can cause major shoulder problems along the way. There are many pitchers with which this has happened. The pair of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood are two of the biggest ones that you have heard about. They were two of the most promising pitchers, but have had shoulder and timing problems for years. Wood has been able to resurrect his career in large part as a closer. Prior has been cut from the Padres, one of the worst teams in the league. Read about the Inverted W and see what you think.

Finally, just before the deadline, the Washington Nationals were able to sign their future ace, Stephen Strasburg, who was supposed to be one of the best players this year. He was their #1 draft pick, so it’ll be interesting to see what he’s able to do in his upcoming starts. The contract they signed with him is worth about $15 million over the next 4 years. This is quite a contract to give to a newbie and definitely gives some high expectations to him. It will be an impressive year for him, and perhaps in future years he will be able to bring this team out of the bottom rung for the first time. They’ve had more than two bad seasons in Washington so far and this year has been one of the worst! We’ll see if he can’t give this team a little shot in the right direction!

Jake Peavy has finally done a short bit of work in AAA rehab work and he threw 3 shutout innings. This was his first pitching stint in several months. He was traded from San Diego to Chicago a couple weeks ago but couldn’t pitch yet, due to his injuries. Now he’s finally got a good base that will put him to work and this will get the White Sox back to work in just a few weeks. His new team has been having quite a bit of success recently, but another good pitcher will help a lot! Peavy is a pitcher that can help any team and the Sox have wanted him for a long time. And now here we go and we shall see how this turns out in the near future.

When we last looked over the MLB standings in detail, there were several divisional races that were looking like they could go the entire way to the end of the season. But looking at it now, only the two central divisions are at all close, with 3.0 game leads for first. The Cubs are 3 games behind St. Louis for that division and hopefully will show some toughness as things go forwards. Meanwhile, Detroit is 3 games ahead of the Chicago White Sox and are playing very strong again. Who knows that this means for the future, although it is very common for these two divisions to have a tough competition at the end of the year. The Yankees seem to be pulling away, as are the LA Dodgers. The Angels are somewhat ahead in their division as are the Phillies in theirs. It’s only a matter of weeks before this gets resolved, and we’re expecting some of these groups to tighten up a bit.

When the Dodgers and the Brewers battled it out last night, people were quite concerned that there was going to be a big brawl. After all, the night before Prince Fielder had attempted to rush the Dodgers’ locker room after a relief pitcher hit him with a pitch. This occurred after a Dodger was hit by a pitch in a previous inning. Retaliation is nothing new in baseball and it’s always good to stick up for a teammate. But Fielder’s charging towards the locker room in anger caused a lot of trouble and made everyone a bit nervous. The extra security kept both team back rooms safe and stopped any kind of problem from developing.

Two homers later and Kevin Gregg walks off a loser for the day. It was supposed to be a game that could continue the good roadtrip for the Cubs, but it hasn’t worked out that way. Yesterday was a slow game until the very end. The Cubs were ahead of the Marlins 1-0 from the third inning to the 7th, when a homerun by Cody Ross tied the game. Then it stayed that way all the way into the 9th inning, when things went crazy. Jake Fox hit a large homerun to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead. But then the wheels came off the Cubs wagon, when Kevin Gregg blew the save: two home runs, one for Uggla and a second one of the day for Ross sank the Cubs series closer. This kind of sudden end is always disappointing for any team on the losing side, but it’s also a lot of fun when you are on the winning side, which was evidenced by the mob scene at home plate for the Marlins.