Tampa bay rays magic number series#
Tampa bay rays magic number free#

Tampa bay rays magic number free#

Drummond is now in Chicago, and Aldridge remains a free agent. Patty Mills and Royce O'Neale will be players of increased importance early on, and the offseason clearing of the logjam in the post is great news for managers who are looking for more production from Nicolas Claxton.Ĭlaxton averaged 20.7 minutes in 47 appearances last season, one minute more than Andre Drummond and 1.6 less than LaMarcus Aldridge. Warren (foot) will be re-evaluated in November. But the Nets will open their season without sharpshooters Seth Curry (ankle) and Joe Harris (foot), and offseason signing T.J. The presence of Durant and Irving means that the Nets won't need Simmons to be a prolific scorer the ability to impact games as a distributor and defender should be enough. Two of these teams are currently dealing with injury issues that will leave them shorthanded for, at the very least, their respective season openers.īrooklyn adds Ben Simmons to the equation, and even with the lack of a perimeter shot, he's a safe bet to be a top-100 fantasy player. Of course, this doesn't apply to stars such as Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Luka Dončić, and Giannis Antetokounmpo those are all players who can give you three games' worth (or more) of production in just two outings, and none will play a back-to-back this week. If your league requires you to set your lineups for the entire week, you'll want to avoid slotting in players from the Nets, Mavericks, Bucks, and Knicks. Baseball does well when Boston does well, so here's hoping manager John Farrell can stay the course.- Brooklyn and Milwaukee head into 2-game weeks shorthanded That all being said, though the Boston Red Sox are in a position to take home the AL East Crown, the fact that the team's magic number is so high truly makes the division theirs to lose. David Price's elbow could keep him out of the playoffs entirely. Drew Pomeranz and Eduardo Rodriguez are touch and go despite fine overall potential. Rick Porcello went from a 5 WAR season and winning the AL Cy Young in 2016 to losing 17 games this year. Save for ace an AL Cy Young favorite Chris Sale, who is still just 3-3 with a 4.01 ERA since August 1 and hasn't notched a win against the Yankees this season, the entire rotation is suspect. That's going to be a problem in the playoffs combined with core players like Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi not having the experience of going deep into the postseason.Īnd let's not forget Boston's pitching woes. Boston ranks just 27th in MLB with 148 homers as a team, leaving them in the middle of the pack in terms of team batting average and runs scored. The loss of future Hall of Famer David Ortiz leaves the lineup without a capable and clutch bat in the middle of the order and the entire lineup is lacking power in general.

Tampa bay rays magic number series#

All it takes is the right hot streak and a few untimely Boston losses, and the Red Sox could find themselves in a play-in game just for the honor of participating in the American League Division Series (ALDS).įinally, Boston's roster on paper is far from playoff caliber, at least compared to last year. That includes two wins against Boston and of New York's 20 remaining games, only three are against a playoff team, the Minnesota Twins who currently hold the second Wild Card spot. Second, the New York Yankees are starting to slowly turn things around and have gone 6-3 in the month of September. Each of those three teams would love to play spoiler, especially Baltimore since the O's and Rays each have an outside shot of being the second AL Wild Card team.

The first is that the team has nine games remaining against AL East squads in the Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, and Toronto Blue Jays, six of which are on the road. The road aheadīoston's bad news comes in a few different forms. Barring a major twist, the division or even a playoff berth should be clinched by then.

In fact, the only playoff team that Boston will face before the playoffs is the Houston Astros, and those would be the last four games of the season.