It’s easy to forget when your favorite team is mired in one, but every team, except maybe the 2001 Mariners, slumps during the course of a season. Good teams can usually overcome these losing bouts. It’s the beauty of a 162-game season. But when those slumps come in September it can become threatening to a team’s playoff chances. As the remaining games dwindle a team has fewer chances to recover. That can render fatal an otherwise innocuous slump. The Braves appear to be in one of those slides.

A day after watching Derek Lowe pitch perhaps his best game as a Brave, the team crumbled at the feet of Livan Hernandez. That’s not all bad, considering this has been Hernandez’s best season since the Expos still existed, but when viewed in the context of the Braves’ slump it looks that much worse. The loss incensed Crag Calcaterra, noted Braves fan, who said, “I guess that means the Braves still lead the wild card race, but it’s a fact: you are not deserving of a playoff spot if you go out and get shut the hell down by Livan freakin’ Hernandez in mid-September.” When I first read that I thought it was an overreaction, but after looking at the Braves’ woes of late I’m not so sure.

Baseball Prospectus’s playoff odds report still gives the Braves a 77 percent chance of making the playoffs, whether by winning the division, 32 percent, or the Wild Card, 45 percent. That gives them far better odds than the next closest Wild Card contender, the Giants, who have a 44 percent chance of entry. An average of a million simulations gives the Braves 91.8 wins the rest of the way, which tops the Giants by 1.7 wins and even the Padres by 0.4 wins. But the simulations don’t know the exact nature of the Braves’ slump. Is it something they can battle through? Or is it of the 2007-2008 Mets ilk?

The rest of the Braves’ schedule contains plenty of opportunity. After finishing their series with the Nationals today they’ll head to New York, Philadelpha, and then Washington. That means two series against the sub-.500 teams and one against the team that sits just two games ahead of them. Philly won’t make it easy for Atlanta, though, as they’ll send Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt to the mound next week. After that, the Braves finish the season with two series at home, one against the Marlins and the final one against the Phillies again. That final series could be the key to the season.

The Phillies also finish the season with an NL East circuit, but they get Washington twice and Florida not at all after today. That probably leaves Atlanta to the Wild Card, which should still be in play during those last three days of the season. The Giants will do battle with the Padres, and there could be a playoff spot on the line there, too. The Braves, though, will be facing a comfortable Philly team that will probably want to line up its playoff rotation and make sure its starters are rested. That could give the Braves just the advantage they need.

A lot of this, of course, depends on how the Braves play in the 13 games before that final Philadelphia series. It doesn’t help that they’re down 4-0 to the Nationals as I write this. But if they can hold on and keep their lead in, or at least remain tied for, the Wild Card race between now and the season finale they could certainly make the playoffs — deservedly or not.

Sometimes a team signs a player because they covet him. This is the case with Josh Beckett and the Red Sox, as we discussed yesterday. Other times a team signs a player because he fits into the team’s roster building strategy. The Sox signed John Lackey this off-season because he was the best available pitcher and therefore fit into the pitching and defense schematic. The plan seemed sound. The Red Sox would attack the league with four good to great starters — plus wild card Daisuke Matsuzaka — and back them up with good to great defense at nearly every position. As evidenced by the team’s record and place in the standings, the plan failed. Lackey has certainly played a part in its unraveling.

Signing Lackey seemed like a sound decision at the time. After gaining fame for his World Series Game 7 start in 2002 he went on to pitch five straight seasons with at least 198.1 innings, and in the last three he kept his ERA at 3.56 or below and his FIP in about the same range. He did miss the starts of the 2008 and 2009 seasons, but pitched well upon his returns, notching 163.1 and 176.1 innings with decent ERAs. In 2009 he had a 3.83 ERA, 3.73 FIP, and 3.92 xFIP, which were all pretty close to his career averages. The Sox knew they weren’t getting an ace, but they figured that with a superb defense behind him he could perhaps outperform his peripherals.

In August Matthew described Lackey’s struggles against lefties, a factor that certainly contributed to his poor season. Also contributing is his poor work on the road. In 93 innings away from Fenway Park Lackey has a 4.55 ERA, 4.30 FIP, and 4.71 xFIP, compared to a 4.36 ERA, 3.54 FIP, and 4.08 xFIP at home. Overall his strikeout rate is down and his walk rate is up, both at career worsts, and his BABIP, .327, is the highest since 2005. His swinging strike rate is down almost two percentage points from last season and for the first time since 2004 it sits below league average. That can be traced to his O-Swing%, which, while slightly higher than last year, is much worse when compared to the league average. I could continue, but suffice it to say that Lackey has declined in many ways this season.

When looking at baseball players there is an urge to find comparisons. We see this on Baseball Reference pages in two forms, one a general comparison and another comparison to players of the same age. Baseball Prospectus’s PECOTA formula uses comparable players when computing its projections. And, of course, there’s always the “he’s a young/a poor man’s/the next” player comparison. For the most part we see these comparisons between players with similar skill sets. But with Lackey the most useful comparison might not be someone who shares his size and pitch repertoire, but rather one who has experienced similar career numbers. Unfortunately for the Red Sox, the best comparison to Lackey might be A.J. Burnett.

At first it might seem silly to compare the two. Lackey hasn’t thrown fewer than 163.1 innings since 2002 and he has very good control. Burnett has spent plenty of time on the DL since his debut in 1999 and generally has terrible control. Yet as Tommy Bennet showed in December, they had similar career rate stats when they signed similar five-year, $82.5 million contracts. Burnett actually came in a notch above, a 3.81 career FIP against Lackey’s 3.90. Burnett also came out ahead when Bennett compared the weighted averages of their three years before signing long-term contracts, but the two are still close.

Both Burnett and Lackey experienced similar changes with their new clubs. In 2009 Burnett saw his strikeout rate drop, his walk rate jump, and his home run rate increase by a decent amount. A BABIP dip, which put him closer to his career average, helped stave off a disastrous season. Lackey saw the same dip in strikeout rate and spike in walk rate, though with BABIP and home run rate he experienced the opposite effect. Lackey’s ERA has jumped, though his FIP isn’t that much higher than last year. Burnett’s FIP increased significantly, but his ERA remained consistent with his career average. Where both pitchers experienced an increase is in xFIP.

Save for his injury shortened 2003 season, Burnett had never experienced an xFIP over 3.75 — and even then it came in 2002. When he made the move to the Yankees it jumped to 4.29. Since 2004 Lackey has kept his xFIP around 4.00, but in his first year with Boston it has increased to a career high 4.39. Lackey can only hope that, because his xFIP didn’t increase to the same degree that Burnett’s did, that he doesn’t experience a similar sophomore season in Boston as Burnett did in New York. This year Burnett’s xFIP has further increased to 4.60, which matches his FIP and is a bit below his 5.13 ERA.

Lackey does have a few things going for him that might help him avoid the same fate as Burnett. He’s almost two years younger, so we might not see his stuff decline in the same we we have seen from Burnett. He also has historically displayed more control, so if that comes back next season he should be back in form. Burnett might have had his worst season control-wise in 2009, but his control wasn’t that good in previous seasons. But considering the similarities between the two, it has to give Boston a scare that Lackey has performed so poorly in the first year of his contract.

When your team wins the game it’s easy to justify the decisions made therein. This morning, R.J. examined Joe Maddon’s moves in last night’s game against the Yankees and expressed a positive impression. While I don’t necessarily agree with the sac bunt call, which also led to the loss of the DH, it didn’t exactly hurt the Rays’ chances of winning the game. Otherwise, it seemed like Maddon made the right — i.e., obvious — moves, and it led to a win. Girardi, on the other hand, made some curious decisions that ended up hurting his team’s chances.

The most obviously bad move was going to Sergio Mitre in the 11th. He has questionable command to begin with, and after a week of inactivity it was unlikely he’d be at his sharpest. Even if Reid Brignac hadn’t homered, chances are he, Evan Longoria, and Carlos Pena would have gotten to him at some point. Once Mitre entered the game it was effectively over. The Rays were going to hit him at some point.

Girardi did have limited options for that 11th inning. David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain were not available. Mariano Rivera was essentially unavailable, though Girardi did say he would have brought him in to save a game. He has shown a willingness to use Rivera in a tie game on the road this season, and in fact has done so as recently as Friday. But Rivera is 41 and could certainly have used the rest. That left just a short set of arms available for extra innings. Unfortunately, that set included the team’s worst arms.

The truly bad bullpen decisions came earlier. Kerry Wood threw 11 pitches in the ninth, but didn’t come out for the 10th. That could have helped extend the game. Boone Logan has been effective since his latest recall and has pitched a full inning, or even more, on several occasions. Last night, Girardi used him for just one batter. There’s no guarantee that he could have staved off defeat, but he certainly gives the Yankees a better chance of survival than Sergio Mitre. So while going to Mitre in the 11th was essentially the only possible decision, Girardi’s prior decisions necessitated it.

Yet Girardi’s oddest decision of the night had nothing to do with the bullpen. It had to do with the exact bunting situation for which R.J. praised Maddon. Nick Swisher couldn’t start because of a gimpy knee, but he did pinch hit for Greg Golson. Since Swisher couldn’t play the field that meant rookie Colin Curtis had to take over in right field and in the ninth spot, which sets the stage for the top of the 11th.

Austin Kearns led off with a single. Up came Curtis Granderson. He hit eighth because the lefty David Price started the game, but this time around he was facing the righty Grant Balfour. Facing the right-handed throwing Balfour gives Granderson an advantage, but Girardi squandered it by having him bunt Kearns to second. That brought up Colin Curtis, who predictably made an out. So, essentially, Girardi traded two outs so Derek Jeter would get a shot to drive in the runner from second. While Jeter has looked better in the past two games, he has had a generally poor season at the plate. He put a good swing on a pitch, but ended up flying out to right. One batter later the Rays walked off.

Without Robertson and Chamberlain available, and for all practical purposes without Rivera, Girardi had tough choices to make. Unfortunately, he seemed to pull the wrong string at the wrong time. He doesn’t get a pass on this one. He gets a break of sorts because of his team’s handicap, but even so he could have made better decisions with the weapons he had. He wasn’t the sole reason the Yankees lost the game, but with a few different (better) moves the game might have ended on a different note.

When a team finds their guy, it’s usually pretty easy to spot. You can see it when a team chooses one player, perhaps multiple times, over comparable alternatives. In the winter following the 2005 season, it looked pretty clear that Josh Beckett was the Red Sox’ guy. They traded Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez, their Nos. 1 and 5 preseason prospects, for a pitcher who, through the first four years of his career, had spent 222 days on the disabled list. Teams don’t do that for ordinary players. The Sox clearly saw something in Beckett that they couldn’t find in another pitcher obtainable for the price of Ramirez and Sanchez — which probably would have been plenty.

That trade appeared to backfire on the Red Sox from the start. Beckett had plenty of problems in his transition to the AL, the long ball not least among them. His strikeout rate dipped, his walk rate rose, and, despite a career-low .270 BABIP he still allowed more hits per nine than he had since 2003. All the while, 1,500 miles to the south, Ramirez stepped into the Marlins starting lineup and immediately started fulfilling his potential. While his defense was shaky he still produced a .364 wOBA and 4.1 WAR, good enough to earn him NL Rookie of the Year honors. With Boston missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002, it was easy to second guess the trade. But Boston remained confident in Beckett’s ability to rebound.

They were so confident of Beckett’s abilities, in fact, that during his beleaguered 2006 campaign they signed him to a three-year, $30 million extension with a $12 million club option for 2010. The announcement came at an odd time in that it happened during a postgame press conference with manager Terry Francona, but it also came at an opportune time in that Beckett had just completed eight shutout innings against the Royals. Prior to that he had a 5.12 ERA and 5.57 FIP — which means, of course, that the Sox signed him when he was at his lowest. Even after that start against KC he didn’t fare well, a 5.36 ERA and 4.41 FIP the rest of the way.

In 2007, of course, the league finally realized the full potential of Josh Beckett. The National League had its fits with him from 2002 through 2005, but never had they experienced a full 30 starts of Beckett dominance. That’s what he unleashed on the American League in 2007. In those 30 starts he struck out 8.7 per nine while walking just 1.8. He also halved his home run rate, which was probably the single biggest difference between his first two seasons in Boston. The result was a 3.27 ERA and 3.08 FIP through 200.2 innings, good enough for second in the AL Cy Young voting. Much to Boston fans’ collective delight, he then led the team to its second World Series in four years with 30 brilliant innings.

While Beckett hasn’t repeated his 2007 greatness, he has still been Boston’s ace ever since. Some bad luck on balls in play, plus some time off in September due to injury, hurt his 2008 a bit; his 3.24 FIP and xFIP looked a lot better than his 4.03 ERA. In 2009 he reached a career high 212.1 innings, though his strikeout walk, and home run rates all trended in the wrong direction, though it wasn’t an overly significant change.

Still, it didn’t seem like the Red Sox were very concerned. They had so much faith in Beckett that they signed him to a four-year, $68 million extension in early April. The contract calls for a $15.75 million salary from 2011 through 2014, which is half a million more each year than John Lackey will earn in that span. It might seem, then, like Beckett has some type of contract aversion. He tripped and stumbled after signing his first long-term deal with the Red Sox and pulled a similar act the second time. But the relapse was quite a bit worse. In his first eight starts Beckett pitched just 45.2 innings and allowed a 7.29 ERA, which included uncharacteristically high hit and walk rates. His FIP, 4.31, looked a bit better, but it was clear when watching him that a lack of command played a large role in his high hit and walk rates. After he allowed five runs in 4.2 innings against the Yankees on May 18, he hit the DL with back issues, not to return for two months.

Sox fans might have winced upon Beckett’s return. He did put together a few good starts right after the comeback, just five runs during his 20.2 innings against the Mariners, Angels, and Indians. But those are three below-average offenses. In his next two starts, against New York and Texas, he allowed 13 runs in 9.2 IP, and then let up six against the Angels in 6.1 IP. It looked like another downhill slide for Beckett. Again, as was the case after the first time the Red Sox signed him to a long-term deal, it was easy to second guess this move.

Lately, Beckett has turned things around a bit. He’s not his dominant self from a few years ago, but that can’t really be expected at this point in the season. But even without top-notch stuff he’s still managed to strike out 28 in his last 25.2 innings, walking just nine in that span. Five of those walks came in yesterday’s six-inning, three-run performance against Oakland. His hit and walk rates, plus his BABIP, are all still above his career averages, signaling a continued lack of command. But he certainly looks better on the mound than he did earlier in the season. It’s an encouraging sign for 2011.

Josh Beckett is always going to spend some time on the shelf. He has, in fact, spent time on the DL, 115 days, in every season with the Sox except 2006 and 2009. But the Sox have done a good job of limiting that time, and have for the most part kept Beckett a healthy and effective pitcher. He hit a road block in 2010, but that’s one that can be overcome with a winter’s rest. Given the way he bounced back last time he experienced a poor season, I expect that 2011 will be yet another quality one for Beckett and the Sox.

It starts with one game, maybe even one at-bat. Maybe the player wasn’t seeing the ball well that day. Maybe there was something physically wrong with him. Maybe he had a mental block. Whatever the reason, a slump has to start somewhere. It’s not always easy to pinpoint the exact moment, but in Gordon Beckham’s case the bookends look clear.

Despite getting his major league season started in early June 2009, Beckham made a strong run for Rookie of the Year. In 430 PA he produced 2.2 WAR, thanks to a .351 wOBA, but that wasn’t good enough for the win. Andrew Bailey took it home with a dominating season out of the pen. Runners up Elvis Andrus, Jeff Niemann, and Brett Anderson also produced more WAR than Beckham. Still, it was a promising start. The White Sox couldn’t have asked for much more from a player in his first full pro season.

On Opening Day Beckham got a jump start on what could have been a marvelous sophomore season. He went 2 for 4 with a double in Chicago’s 4-0 win over Cleveland. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t last. That double was one of only five extra base hits in April. Beckham ended the month with a .287 wOBA, but that was only the start of his troubles. The real slump started when the calendar flipped to May.

On May 1 Beckham went 0 for 5 with three strikeouts against the Yankees. Considering his April struggles that didn’t come as much of a surprise. Young players struggle, and Beckham was just proving that he was no exception. Yet by mid-month things seemingly got out of hand. Beckham’s batting average dropped below .200, and a few games later his OBP fell under .300. Something was amiss, and manager Ozzie Guillen did not shy away from the situation.

“It’s my job to make every player wearing the uniform the best I can.  I never criticize anybody about being 0-for-40, I never criticize anybody to make any errors. I think Gordon is better than what he’s shown. I think there’s a lot of pressure on him.

“Maybe the first time ever this kid go through this. He’s the golden boy. He grew up in Little League, he hit .600. He go to high school, best player, go to college, kick some butt. He go to the minor leagues, erupted. First year in the big leagues, kicked some butt. It’s easy to play this game when you’re good. It’s tough to play this game when you’re down. He’s got all my support.”

He said that after Beckham had another three-strikeout game on May 6. This time he took the slump out into the field with him, committing two errors. For some players this might have been rock bottom. This was not the case for Beckham. His struggles continued throughout May, a month during which he failed to record an extra base hit. In fact, after a double on April 29 Beckham didn’t hit anything better than a single until June 9. The previous night he went 0 for 4, this time with two strikeouts, dropping his line to .199/.279/.237.

After struggling throughout the rest of June, albeit with a bit more power, Beckham finally went to work in July. The month started slowly, but eventually Beckham racked up nine multi-hit games and hit for extra bases 12 times. He walked just three times during the month, which is always a bit concerning, but it also appeared that he was seeing the ball a bit better. That all came together in August when he hit .309/.400/.531, a .388 wOBA in 97 PA. But just as quickly as he turned it around, the situation was turned on its head.

In his fourth plate appearance on a day when he had gone 2 for 3, Beckham was hit in the hand by Cleveland rookie Frank Hermann. The next day he couldn’t grip a bat. The Sox gave him four days off before reinserting him into the lineup for both ends of a doubleheader against Boston. Beckham responded by going 2 for 7 with a double. He played the next day and went 1 for 4, and then played again on the sixth. On the seventh he was scratched from the lineup. He hasn’t played in a game since.

Beckham’s absence couldn’t have come at a worse time. On the sixth, after a win in Detroit, the Sox sat just 3.5 games back of Minnesota in the Central. With Beckham out of the lineup they dropped their next three, moving them to six behind with just 22 games remaining. That’s an awfully large deficit to cover against the streaking Twins. Beckham might not have made all the difference in the previous three games, but he would have had some sort of impact.

By the end of June, 2010 looked like a lost season for Beckham. He wasn’t hitting for average or power, he wasn’t taking his walks, and he looked generally helpless at the plate. Then something changed, and Beckham became a big player in the Sox lineup. His turnaround might have hurt his team early on, but he helped them greatly in the second half. That might be for naught now, but it certainly gives the team something to look forward to in 2011.

While many teams surprised us in 2010, few have done so like the Toronto Blue Jays. When discussing the team’s present talent in our Organizational Rankings series, it became clear that while the team had some talented players it was not yet in a position to make a run at the AL East or even the AL Wild Card. The players, especially on offense, just weren’t of the elite caliber necessary to compete with Boston, New York, and Tampa Bay. Yet the Blue Jays started strong, and unlike years past they didn’t experience a steep collapse. Even with a loss last night they’re five games over .500 with 23 games to go, beating almost all preseason projections.

Think back, if you will, to the start of the season. Try to forget what we learned about the Blue Jays players during the course of 2010. OK? Now take a look at the Opening Day starters:

C: John Buck
1B: Lyle Overbay
2B: Aaron Hill
3B: Edwin Encarnacion
SS: Alex Gonzalez
LF: Travis Snider
CF: Vernon Wells
RF: Jose Bautista
DH: Adam Lind

If Snider took a step forward, Wells bounced back, and Lind and Hill build on their 2009 seasons, this looked like a lineup that might score around 4.5 runs per game. That’s not terrible, but it’s still not enough ammo. Even with a quality pitching staff that features many young, promising arms, it’s almost impossible for a team to compete in the AL East without scoring around five runs per game.

Staying in pre-season mode, now imagine that Lind and Hill experience precipitous drop-offs from last season, and that while Wells recovers to a reasonable degree Snider continues to struggle and spends significant time on the DL. That would make the offense look considerably worse, to the point that they might even fall behind the Baltimore Orioles. But despite these shortcomings the Jays have managed a pleasantly surprising season.

As David G. noted all the way back in May, the Jays have absolutely crushed the ball this season. They were doing it then, and they continue it through today. This leaves them with the highest SLG and the highest ISO, by more than 20 points, in the AL. They also have the highest HR/FB ratio in the AL, by two full percentage points. This rate gets amplified because the team also has the highest flyball to groundball ratio. This renders their AL lead in homers, by 33, unsurprising. They are also second in the league in doubles.

This power tendency does have its drawbacks, not least of which is the team’s inability to put men on base. Their team .314 OBP ranks second to last in the AL, tied with Baltimore. This means that while they can mash, they don’t often have opportunities to do so with men on base. As David noted in his article, the Jays experienced some insane luck earlier in the season when batting with runners in scoring position, .268/.347/.537 against .232/.289/.422 with the bases empty as of May 25. After yesterday’s win they are now .249/.311/.446 with the bases empty and .247/.324/.463 with RISP.

The Jays also have the third lowest team batting average in the league, .250, and have the lowest BABIP in the league, .274. The low BABIP is at least partly due to the team’s tendency to hit fly balls, since the league BABIP on fly balls, .141, far lower than it is on ground balls, .233. A related point is that they seemingly refuse to not hit the ball hard. They might lead the league in homers and rank second in doubles, but they have hit the fewest singles in the majors — 84 fewer than the next lowest team.

For the most part this trade-off worked for the Jays hitters. Alex Gonzalez’s WAR batting component was 5.3 in just a half season, which is far and away better than any full season of his career. Vernon Wells recovered from a horrible season to produce his best on offense since 2006. John Buck’s WAR batting component, 5.5, is by far his best. Yunel Escobar has improved, especially with power, since the Blue Jays acquired him. Even John McDonald’s WAR batting component is in the black. And then there’s Jose Bautista, who needs no description.

All of this seems to result from hitting coach Dwayne Murphy’s tutelage. He has instilled a mantra in his team: Get ready, get a pitch, and swing hard. During most plate appearances a player will get something at which he can take a mighty hack, and Murphy wants his guys to take advantage. Many times it results in outs, but as the Blue Jays showed it can also result in plenty of runs. That’s Murphy’s philosophy, as Yahoo’s Tim Brown related earlier in the season:

“I think on-base percentage is an overrated stat,” Murphy said flatly. “Those guys getting on base, most of them aren’t getting them in. Give me somebody who drives them in after that. I need guys who can drive the ball.”

He certainly does have a point that putting men on base and leaving them there will not produce runs, but there is also a glaring flaw in this philosophy. In order to have guys who can drive home runners there need to be runners on in the first place. The home runs help, but all the outs the Jays hitters make hurt. After all, just like every other team they have only 27 outs per game. They’re wasting more of them than all but one other team in the league. That’s a big reason why they lead the AL in homers and are second in doubles, but are seventh in runs scored.There just aren’t enough guys aboard for those extra base hits.

Still, the strategy has worked with many of the current Jays players. We can point to Lind and Hill as examples of players who haven’t taken to it, but that could just be coincidence. Players do have down years. What I wonder is whether this will work with future teams. The Jays have basically taken previously underperforming hitters and have realized production from them. Will the same strategy work for a group of more talented hitters? This is just one question that will make the 2011 Blue Jays one of the more interesting teams in the AL.

If a team is five games out at the All-Star break it’s no big deal. Not only does the team have a couple of weeks to improve its team via trade, but it also has 70-some-odd games to help close that gap. It can can pick up a game every two weeks and cover the deficit before season’s end. But by the time we reach late August and September and those gaps remain at five games, a comeback becomes a bit less reasonable. Yet we’ve seen a few late-season comebacks in recent years. They don’t happen every year, but when they do makes for quite a memorable September.

At 74-64, 4.5 games back in both the NL West and the Wild Card, the Rockies appear out of contention. Even if they do go on a tear they have a few teams standing in the way. The Giants or the Padres would have to collapse, and even then the Rockies might need help from another Wild Card contender to come even close to a playoff spot. Their chances are so remote that it’s easy to write them off and concentrate on the closer races. But considering the number of times we’ve seen big comebacks in recent years, and further considering that only three years ago these Rockies accomplished the feat, it’s a bit tougher, at least for me, to completely forget about them.

The 2010 season has been rough on the Rockies. They finished April 11-12 despite a +26 run differential, which put them in a bit of a hole. May was a bit more kind, but the team plodded through June and July just one game over .500. By the end of July, sitting in fourth place in the West, the Rockies even thought about becoming sellers. That never came to fruition, but the Rockies also made no big attempts to improve. They decided instead to go with what they had and let the season play out. The players, I’m sure, didn’t give up, but I doubt anyone in or near the organization thought they had any realistic chance.

In August the team did catch a break. Despite a -4 run differential they went 15-12, which helped balance out the poor April. Still, at month’s end they were seven games back in the West and 4.5 back in the Wild Card and were also coming off a loss to the Giants. They opened September with another loss to the Giants, followed by a loss to the Wild Card (and NL East) contending Phillies. That seemed to obliterate any remaining chance they had. By this time 7.5 games separated them and the Padres, and 6.5 games stood between them and a playoff spot.

On Friday the Rockies opened a series at Petco Park against the Padres, who had lost their previous six games. Much to everyone’s surprise the Rockies turned that into nine straight losses. A wins against the Reds on Monday and Tuesday made it five straight for Colorado, moving them to their current position. Again, it’s not a great position, but it’s a manageable one. It’s only a half game worse than their standing at the 138-game mark in 2007 — only then they had three teams ahead of them in both the division and Wild Card races, rather than the two they have today.

The Rockies share an important similarity with the 2007 team. When mounting a comeback every little detail counts. In September this includes the schedule. In 2007 the Rockies played 14 of their final 24 games at home, where they had a 41-26 record as of Game 138. This year the Rockies play 14 of their final 24 games at home, only they’re even better this year, 45-22 at Coors Field. Six of those 14 home games come against the Padres and the Giants, the two teams that stand in Colorado’s way. On the road they’ll play Los Angelez, Arizona, and St. Louis. The Rockies have a better record than each of them. That would seem to give them an advantage at this point in the season.

Even with the schedule advantage the Rockies still have a long way to go and they’re dependent on a lot of lucky breaks. Jhoulys Chacin will have to make a few more starts like his six-inning, two-run performance last night. Aaron Cook needs to finish strong after a generally poor season. Carlos Gonzalez will have to continue his mashing taters. Essentially, multiple players will have to get hot at the same time and sustain that production for a few weeks. It’s not something on which to place an even modest wager. But it’s certainly within the realm of possibility. In September, with most of the playoff races all but settled, we could go for some comeback dramatics.

Fans of National League baseball will find joy this September. The largest gap between first and second place is six games, and the Cardinals are certainly good enough to make up some ground and turn the Central back into a competitive race. Philadelphia sits just a half game behind Atlanta in the East and 1.5 games ahead of San Francisco in the Wild Card. Colorado and St. Louis also sit within five games of the Wild Card. Seven teams vying for four spots tends to create some interesting baseball. Unfortunately for AL fans, the races aren’t nearly as compelling.

The AL East and AL Wild Card races are all but over. True, the White Sox are six back of the Wild Card, while the Red Sox are just a half-game behind that pace. The difference between the AL Wild Card and the NL Central, of course, is the quality of the teams involved. At 83-54 Tampa Bay owns the league’s second-best record. It would be much more difficult for Chicago or Boston to overtake a team that strong than it would be for St. Louis to overtake a Cincinnati team that is not without flaw. That leaves just one race, the AL Central, up for grabs.

The White Sox are within 3.5 games of the Twins, and it looks like they’ll need more than just a hot streak to close the gap. They have, in fact, been on quite the streak, rattling off seven straight victories. But in that span they’ve gained just one game on the Twins, thanks to the Twins winning 9 of their last 11. If both teams remain hot their seasons could be determined during their three-game set starting September 14th. Outside of that, neither team plays a particularly tough schedule the rest of the way.

The Twins clearly have the advantage here — not just for their 3.5 game lead, but also for the way they’ve played since early July. Exactly three months ago Justin Morneau suffered a concussion and hasn’t played a game since. Minnesota lost that game, dropping them to 45-39, third place in the Central by 1.5 games. Since then they’ve played .667 ball, going 36-18. That has made it quite difficult for the White Sox to keep pace. They’re a good team for sure, and as they showed earlier this year they can go on a monstrous tear. But it seems like every White Sox streak is overshadowed by Minnesota’s excellent play.

The rest of the way it appears as though Minnesota has a slight schedule advantage. Before the series with Chicago they play two against Kansas City and then three in Cleveland. After that they face Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, and finally Toronto, meaning they play one team with an above-.500 record and two teams with records around the break-even mark. Chicago has three more against Detroit and three in KC before the Twins series, and then Detroit, Oakland, Anaheim, Boston, and finally Cleveland. That makes for also one team above .500, but a team faring slightly better than the Jays. Chicago’s disadvantage comes from their six remaining games with Detroit.

September can prove a wacky month in the world of baseball. Last year we saw the Twins lose Morneau and subsequently get hot and win the AL Central in a one-game playoff. In 2008, Minnesota was down 2.5 with six games to play. They swept the White Sox to take first place, but then dropped two of three to Kansas City, forcing a playoff which they lost. Minnesota might hold the advantage right now, but we’ve seen how quickly things can turn. Baseball fans might find more consistent enjoyment with the NL races, but keep your eyes on the Central. This could be the third straight year with a crazy finish.

How do you make a bad team worse? By moving its best players to other teams. We see this every year at the non-waiver trade deadline. Contenders seek upgrades. Non-contenders seek a return on the veterans who won’t be part of the future. The pairing is almost perfect. Contenders load up for the short-term, while non-contenders build with the next two or three years in mind. Of course, that leaves in question the matter of the current season for the non-contending club.

Realistically it doesn’t matter whether a team wins 65 games or it wins 70 games. Either way it’s a sub-.500 season and it will almost certainly mean a top 15 draft pick the following year. Why, then, do some teams hold onto the veterans whose contracts will expire before they will reach the point of contention? Off the top of my head I can think of a few reasons:

1. They want to keep the player close so they can re-sign him and make him part of the franchise’s long-term outlook.

2. They think they can get a better return on the player at a later date, perhaps in the winter when more teams will vie for his services.

2a. The available trade proposals don’t match the potential of the compensatory draft picks.

3. They’re afraid that trading the player signal surrender and cause fans to stop attending games.

The Nats actually used all three reasons to explain why they didn’t trade Adam Dunn. All year we’ve heard about the team’s desire to sign Dunn long-term, we’ve heard GM Mike Rizzo say that he didn’t receive any acceptable offers, and we know that the team wanted to win as many games as possible even though the playoffs have been an impossibility since sometime in May. If Dunn signs elsewhere this off-season the Nats can fall back only on No. 3, and considering their spot in last place that’s a tiny consolation.

The Astros took an opposite approach this July. They entered the month 31-48 and had no hope of a come back. Sure, they made runs after being 35-41 on July 1, 2005 and 40-43 on July 1, 2008, but this was a considerably deeper hole. At least in those years they were within 7.5 games of the Wild Card. This year they were 13.5 back, and considering the roster composition there was simply no chance for a comeback. This led the team to make available its highest profile players, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman. Before the month was over the Astros would deal both.

Trading Oswalt acted as the precursor for trading Berkman. The Astros received J.A. Happ, Anthony Gose, and Jonathan Villar in exchange for Oswalt, and then flipped Gose to the Blue Jays for 1B Brett Wallace. With an MLB-ready first baseman on hand, the Astros could then flip Berkman and get out from under some of his remaining salary. They didn’t receive much from the Yankees, though Mark Melancon was a once-heralded reliever who might find success in his new environment. The trades helped the Astros in the short-term, in that it saved them some money, and in the long-term, since they have young, cost-controlled players in place of older, more expensive ones. But there is that pesky thing called winning, and the trades looked to hurt the Astros in that department.

Berkman played his last game for the Astros on July 29. That means from July 29 through now they have played without their two franchise-defining players. At that point the team was 42-59, 3.5 games behind fourth-place Chicago, 14 games behind the Reds and Cardinals, and 15.5 games back in the Wild Card. Not that any of that mattered. The Astros were just playing out the season and hoping they might learn something that they can use in assembling next year’s club. But instead of flipping on cruise control, the Astros went on a tear.

Since Berkman’s final game the Astros have gone 20-12, playing spoiler to many NL contenders, including their division rivals the Cardinals. They leapfrogged Chicago a while back and now sit 5.5 games ahead of them. They’ve even caught Milwaukee and are currently tied with them for third in the Central. How does that happen? How does a team lose two of its best players and play better than they did with them on board? The answer, at least in this case, is that the Astros’ improvement started while Oswalt and Berkman were still on the roster.

The Astros’ season couldn’t have started any worse. They went 8-14 in April and then fell even further, going 9-20 in May. That left them with the worst record in the NL by 2.5 games. They had scored 13 fewer runs than the next closest NL team, and were 75 behind the next closest after that. June didn’t appear to be much friendlier, as their interleague schedule included two series against Texas and one against the Yankees. But the Astros made it through at a .500 pace even though they had a -22 run differential. That appeared to be just the start. In July the Astros went 13-11 with a +3 run differential. Then, sans their stars, they went 17-12 in August with a +17 differential. They’re currently 1-0 in September.

They have accomplished this by improving on both sides of the ball. In the rotation Wandy Rodriguez has come on strong after a rough start. Through his first 14 starts he had a 6.09 ERA, though his 4.29 FIP suggested it wasn’t solely bad pitching at fault. In his latest 13 starts he has a 1.65 ERA and 2.50 FIP, lasting at least six innings each time. He has allowed more than one earned run just three times in those 13 starts. Oswalt was the team’s best pitcher at his time of departure, a 3.42 ERA and 3.39 FIP, which amounted to 2.7 WAR. Happ took his place and while his FIP is a bit higher, 3.65, his ERA is a bit lower, 3.32. He has so far produced 0.7 WAR in his seven starts.

On offense the Astros did more than replace Berkman with Wallace. In fact, that was a considerable downgrade. Berkman wasn’t having the greatest year, but he did appear to be recovering from knee surgery. His wOBA rose in each month this season, peaking at .392 in July. That amounted to 2.0 WAR. Wallace has been worth -0.3 WAR since his arrival. The difference has been made in a number of places, most noticeably with Jeff Keppinger, whom R.J. wrote about this week, and Chris Johnson, who has been on a BABIP-fueled tear since taking over at third base for the uninspiring Pedro Feliz. Hunter Pence has also recovered after a slow start. He produced a .372 wOBA in July and .376 in August, helping power a once punchless Astros offense.

By most indications, the Astros are playing above their heads. Based on simple run differential they’re behind both Milwaukee and Chicago. Baseball Prospectus’s third-order wins have them in that position as well. There is no doubt that some of their players, Johnson most notably, are hitting at unsustainable rates. It doesn’t mean much for next year. The Astros are still a few years and a number of lucky breaks away from pulling back into contention. But they’ve managed to make something out of what was a season lost from the very beginning.

This year was never going to be the Orioles’ year. They were short on sure things, and they were still guided by manager Dave Trembley, who was essentially the longest tenured interim manager in baseball at the time. But unlike Orioles teams of years past, the 2010 team had promise. They had a young center fielder on the brink of stardom. Their catcher had his own mythology. Their young pitchers tantalized the imagination. With some progress from those franchise players the Orioles could have taken a step towards contention in 2010. Instead they fought and clawed to keep themselves out of the cellar.

Brian Matusz represented one of the bigger disappointments. The Orioles’ No. 1 prospect before the season, he received rave reviews from prospect rating outlets. Baseball America not only praised his stuff and command, but also his mind for the game. Marc Hulet also ranked him No. 1 and made similar observations. Matusz might not have been quite ready to head a rotation in his second full pro season, but he seemed poised to take a few steps forward.

Like the Orioles’ season on the whole, Matusz’s 2010 did not go according to plan. He started off at a decent pace, a 4.18 ERA and 3.16 FIP through eight starts. In his ninth start he gave up seven runs in 2.1 innings to the Rangers. In his tenth he surrendered six in five innings to Oakland. After a few good starts he tumbled again, and by July’s end he had a 5.46 ERA and 4.36 FIP. That’s not a poor fielding-independent stat for a second-year pro, but with that ERA combined with the expectations placed on Matusz, it looked particularly poor.

On August 2 the Orioles brought in their new manager, Buck Showalter, and it had an immediate and positive impact on the organization. The Orioles not only played well in August, going 17-11, but they outplayed all of their foes in the AL East. The hitters started to hit better. The pitchers started to experience better results. It’s almost like they started playing to the level that we expected earlier in the year. Brian Matusz was a big part of that turnaround.

Last night he held down the Red Sox for just two runs through six innings, striking out six to just one walk. It capped off an August that has helped change the perception of Matusz’s season. Before he was a young, high-ceiling pitcher who was having trouble navigating the league. Now, after a month in which he had a 2.43 ERA and 3.34 FIP, he’s again a young ace-in-training on the right track. That’s something the Orioles need after their disappointing season.

Matusz’s hot August becomes more impressive when we see the quality of his opponents. He had one bad start in which he allowed five runs in four innings against the Rays, the league’s third-best offense. But he also allowed one run in six innings and one run in seven innings against the No. 6 White Sox; no runs in eight innings against No. 4 Texas; and two runs in six innings against No. 2 Boston. His only easy game came against No. 9 Anaheim, and he made the most of it with a six-inning, one-run performance.

Even with a hot September Matusz’s season-long numbers won’t look that pretty. But that’s not the important part right now. The Orioles were non-contenders from Day One. What mattered in their 2010 season was the development of key young players. The plan didn’t go so well at first, but since Showalter took over they’ve been back on track. The Baltimore franchise might not have taken a big step forward in 2010, but they’re still poised for a run in a few years. Whenever it happens, Matusz figures to play a big part.