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I just spotted this add banner on MLB.com:

MLB.com ad banner

I bring it to your attention because of the teams featured on it: The Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, and the Oakland Athletics.

Last night, the New York Yankees moved ½ game ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East, and the Red Sox are 1 game behind the Cleveland Indians in the AL Wild Card race.

The Chicago White Sox hold a 2½ game lead over the Cleveland Indians. They held something like a 10 game lead at the All-Star break, and have been playing .500 ball since then. They just lost two of three to the Indians, and are in danger of suffering the biggest collapse in baseball history.

The Oakland Athletics are 2½ games behind the Los Angeles Angels of Aneheim, and 5 games behind the Cleveland Indians in the Wild Card chase.

In a worst-case scenario for this trio of teams, the Angels, Indians, and Yankees win the divisions. That leaves the Wild Card, which one of these teams would earn. Of course, they could all still win their divisions.

The closeness of these four AL races (three divisions and the Wild Card) is exciting enough, but the fact that in the final weekend of the season the Red Sox host the Yankees, the Indians host the White Sox, and the Athletics host the Angles for a 4 game set in the second-to-last series of the season. What this means is that all of these races will probably be undecided until that last week. Outstanding.

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