The MLB Sleepyhead Summary is a new regular column that helps British baseball fans keep up to speed with MLB despite the time difference!

The Cleveland Indians swept a four-game series over Detroit over the past weekend, including getting two helping hands from the Tigers on Sunday, to make it 11 wins in a row.

The Tribe are in rare form despite having several key players on the Disabled List. Pitcher Danny Salazar is scheduled to make his return from the DL this week and if Cleveland are only going to get stronger over the next couple of weeks, they could be front-runners to win the American League pennant that they captured a year ago.

Houston swept an emotional home series against the New York Mets to celebrate the capture of Justin Verlander. The current plan is for their new star recruit to make his Astros debut on Tuesday.

In the AL East, the New York Yankees needed to take advantage of their final season series against the Boston Red Sox and they did just that. The Yankees won three of four, including the finale against Chris Sale on Sunday, to cut the Red Sox’s lead to 3.5 games.

Those wins also kept the Yankees in pole position for the first AL Wild Card spot. They have a two-game lead over Minnesota after the Twins lost two of three against Kansas City (their one win was a good one though: 17-0). Among the other Wild Card contenders, Seattle swept the slumping A’s 3-0, Texas got the better of the LA Angels 2-1 and Baltimore split a four-game series with Toronto.

The losers on the weekend were Tampa Bay who not only dropped two of three against the Chicago White Sox but also saw pitcher Chris Archer leave his start early with foreram tightness. An update on his condition is expected early this week.

Coming up

The Rays will pray for good news on the Archer front whilst hoping for a strong home series against the Twins to try to get themselves firmly back into the Wild Card race. The Rays are currently 4 games behind the Twins for the second Wild Card.

The Yankees are in Baltimore to take on the Orioles, with the Angels facing the A’s and the Mariners hosting the Astros. Texas are on the round playing an inter-league series against Atlanta.

D-Backs make it 10

In the National League, it’s the Arizona Diamondbacks who can’t stop winning. They’ve won ten in a row and the latest three came at the expense of the Colorado Rockies who have been their closest NL Wild Card rivals all season so far.

The Rockies now sit 6.5 games behind the D-Backs for the first Wild Card and have Milwaukee right on their tail at just 0.5 games further back.

The Brewers won three of four games against the Washington Nationals over the past weekend, although the Chicago Cubs matched that (against Atlanta) so the gap at the top of the NL Central is still 3.5 in the Cubs’ favour.

St Louis are still on the case following a 3-1 series win over the San Francisco Giants, whilst Miami suffered a blow by losing three of four against the Phillies.

The big shock of the weekend came in San Diego where the Padres recovered from losing their series-opener against the Dodgers (Clayton Kershaw’s successful return from the DL) by winning the next three games.

Coming up

The Dodgers will now take on the D-Backs in an intriguing three-game series, whilst the Rockies host the Giants, the Brewers travel to Cincinnati and the Cardinals are in San Diego knowing that the Padres will be no push-over.

Miami need to get back on track with some home games against Washington and the Pittsburgh Pirates are arguably in the last chance saloon for their distant Wild Card hopes. They have a four-game series against the Cubs are really need to get the brooms out and sweep the set to keep their hopes alive.

The MLB Sleepyhead Summary is a new regular column that helps British baseball fans keep up to speed with MLB despite the time difference!

I’m writing up the Sleepyhead Summary with the Braves-Cubs game live on the TV on Friday evening.

The calendar hitting 1 September is a sobering reminder that we have just one month left of the MLB regular season and the daily dose of ballgames that we get to enjoy.

Best make the most of them.

American League Sweeps

The main story in the American League over the past few days has been sweeps.

The Boston Red Sox swept their three-game series in Toronto to all-but put the Blue Jays out of realistic Wild Card contention, whilst the New York Yankees were swept off their own field by the charging Cleveland Indians. That put the Red Sox 5.5 games ahead of the Yankees in the AL East before they started a four-game series on Thursday night.

New York took the opener 6-2, catcher Gary Sanchez hitting his 12th home run of August, to bring the gap back down to 4.5 and they’ll be hoping to continue that trend over the rest of the weekend.

There were also sweeps for the Minnesota Twins (over the White Sox), Baltimore Orioles (Seattle) and the LA Angels (Oakland), whilst the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers won their respective series over Kansas City and Houston 2-1.

Where that leaves us

All of which has kept the Yankees out in front for the first AL Wild Card but by just a single game over the Minnesota Twins. The Twins then have a 1.5 game lead over the Angels, 2.5 over the Orioles, 4 over the Rays and Rangers and 4.5 over the Mariners and Royals.

The key AL weekend series (on top of the aforementioned Red Sox-Yankees) see the Angels and Rangers meeting in Arlington and the Royals facing the Twins in Minnesota. Baltimore will look to gain ground with a four-game series against the Blue Jays although they dropped the opener on Thursday night thanks to a three homer barrage by Kendrys Morales.

D-Backs Down the Dodgers

In the Senior Circuit the sweep of the week saw the Arizona Diamondbacks defeat the LA Dodgers 3-0 to hand the Dodgers their first sweep of the season. Arizona have won seven games in a row before starting a three-game series against fellow current Wild Card spot holders the Colorado Rockies.  The Rockies have stuttered a bit of late and lost their mid-week series against Detroit 2-1.

The Chicago Cubs swept their three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, pretty much knocking the Buccos out of contention in the process, with the Washington Nationals also getting the brooms out to deal a blow to the previously-hot Miami Marlins. Giancarlo Stanton was able to tie the record for most home runs hit in August (18) during the series to take his season total to 51.

The Cardinals and Brewers split their short two-game series 1-1, leaving Milwaukee 3.5 games behind the Cubs in the NL Central and 2.5 games behind the Rockies for the second Wild Card.

The weekend series in the NL include the Brewers hosting the Nationals, Miami hosting the Phillies (the Phils won the opener on Thursday 3-2), the Cardinals heading to San Francisco and the Dodgers heading to San Diego.

ALW – W for Waiver deals

Away from the games, the off-field action took place in the AL West on Thursday as the Astros, Angels and Rangers all made late-night waiver deals before the end of August (and the cut-off for new additions to be eligible for their potential post-season rosters).

The Astros made the big splash many thought they’d make before the non-waiver deadline by acquiring Justin Verlander from the Tigers. He didn’t seem overly keen on the idea by all accounts, but – as a parent says to a doubtful child heading to school for the first time – I’m sure he’ll enjoy it when he gets there.

Detroit continued their tear-down by sending Justin Upton to the Angels, with Anaheim also acquiring Brandon Phillips from the Braves. The Rangers didn’t want to be left out and therefore added starting pitcher Miguel Gonzalez from the White Sox.

The MLB Sleepyhead Summary is a new regular column that helps British baseball fans keep up to speed with MLB despite the time difference!

Things have rarely been dull in Miami during the period of Jeffrey Loria’s ownership of the Marlins. He’s a controversial figure, put politely, and few will be too sad to see him leave when the sale of the club to a new ownership group formally goes through later this year.

However, the team won a World Series in his first year and they’re making a run to get to the post-season for his final year too.

Giancarlo Stanton hit his 50th home run of the season on Sunday as the Marlins completed a 3-0 sweep of the San Diego Padres to put them 4.5 games behind for the second NL Wild Card. That’s still a fair gap to make up, but it’s certainly possible with a month of games still to be played.

Arizona now have a 1.5 game lead over Colorado for the first Wild Card spot after they swept a three-game series against the San Francisco Giants. The first two games were close one-run affairs and the third game was going that way too until the D-Backs exploded for nine runs in the eighth inning on their way to an impressive 11-0 victory. The Rockies held their Wild Card spot with a 2-1 series win over Atlanta.

The Milwaukee Brewers had a good weekend as they became the first team since early June to get the better of the LA Dodgers in a series. Jimmy Nelson took a no-hitter into the sixth inning of Sunday’s game as the Brew Crew prevailed 3-2 over the returning Yu Darvish and took the series 2-1.

That came at a good time for Milwaukee as the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs lost a series 2-1 to Philadelphia, Rhys Hoskins homering in his fifth consecutive game for the Phillies to make it 11 long-balls in his first 18 MLB games, which puts the Brewers just two games behind the Cubs. The Cardinals lost their weekend series against Tampa Bay 1-2, whilst Pittsburgh just about kept their hopes alive by winning two of three in Cincinnati.

In the American League, the Baltimore Orioles had a great weekend in Boston. After thumping the Red Sox 16-3 in the series opener, they took the following two games as well (a combined score of 25-4) to put themselves just two games behind the Twins for the second Wild Card. Minnesota won their weekend series against Toronto 2-1 with Byron Buxton hitting three home runs in the decider on Sunday.

The Yankees have a 3.5 game lead over Minnesota for the first AL Wild Card as they recovered from losing their series opener against Seattle by winning the following two games, Sunday’s including five first-inning errors by the M’s (three by Jean Segura alone). The Wild Card isn’t the Yankees only focus though.  Baltimore’s wins over Boston helped out the New York Yankees as they are now just 2.5 games behind the Red Sox in the AL East.

It wasn’t such a good weekend for the Angels, Royals and Rangers. The Angels lost their series against Houston 1-2, whilst both the Royals and Rangers were swept in three-game series. Texas lost three to Oakland in a series they would have expected to enjoy, yet Kansas City’s losses may have been just as painful. Although Cleveland were always going to be a tough opponent, the Royals failed to score a single run across the three games.

This week

Miami’s play-off credentials will be firmly tested as they head to Washington for a three-game series starting on Monday. Arizona are hosting the LA Dodgers hoping they can follow the Brewers’ lead in winning a series against the best team in the Majors.

It could be an important week in the NL Central as the contending teams are coming together, with Milwaukee hosting St Louis and Pittsburgh heading to Wrigley Field to face the Cubs.

In the American League, Baltimore will look to keep their good form going with a three-game series at home against the Mariners. Boston will hope to end their four-game losing streak against Toronto with the Blue Jays probably needing a sweep to keep an outside chance of getting back into it in September. The Yankees will see if they can gain even further ground in the AL East by earning some wins against Cleveland.

The Twins match up against the White Sox once again after a five-game series last week, the Angels are hosting the A’s and Tampa Bay and Kansas City collide with both needing wins to jump some of the teams ahead of them in the Wild Card race.

Finally, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros will play an emotional three-game series. The devastation caused by Storm Harvey has meant that the series will be moved from Houston. Originally it was thought they would swap it to Texas (Arlington), but the latest news is that it may move to Tampa Bay instead. Clearly, there are difficult logistical problems involved for Houston home games in the immediate near future, yet in the greater scheme of things they seem inconsequential.

The MLB Sleepyhead Summary is a new regular column that helps British baseball fans keep up to speed with MLB despite the time difference!

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ victory on Thursday meant that they not only became the first team in the Majors to get to 90 wins in 2017, but they also reached that mark more quickly than any team in the club’s long history.

The Dodgers took three games out of four against the Pittsburgh Pirates and the one they lost was an epic on Wednesday, with Rich Hill pitching 9+ no-hit innings and then being handed a loss.

The tough series has put the Pirates 8.5 games out in the NL Wild Card and there were 1-2 losing series for fellow challengers Milwaukee (versus San Francisco) and St Louis (versus San Diego). The Cardinals had further bullpen issues on the field and even worse off it, with Trevor Rosenthal confirmed as requiring Tommy John elbow surgery.

That made for a good few days for the Chicago Cubs as they took two from three against Cincinnati to give themselves a 3 game lead over the Brewers in the NL Central.

Arizona have a half-game lead for the first Wild Card after splitting a four-game series against the Mets. Robbie Ray made a successful return on Thursday from a DL stint, but there was more bad news for the Mets in the same game as Michael Conforto dislocated his shoulder whilst swinging his bat.

The Rockies are still in second place despite losing two of three against Kansas City. They have a 3.5 game lead over Milwaukee, 5 over St Louis and then 5.5 over the Miami Marlins. Giancarlo Stanton continues to cause major damage at the plate, belting his 47th home run of the season on Thursday.

In the American League, the recently-hot Minnesota Twins hoped to continue their winning ways by flat-track-bullying the Chicago White Sox in a five-game series. It didn’t turn out that way as Chicago edged the series 3-2, but the Twins have still held onto the second Wild Card spot for now.

The Royals, Mariners, Orioles, Rays and Yankees all won their respective series 2-1, with the Yankees now having a 3.5 game lead for the first Wild Card spot and showing they are firmly up for the fight during a fraught Thursday game against Detroit that included three bench-clearing brawls.

The winners on the week were Texas as they got the better of the Angels 3-1, whilst Anaheim suffered another loss with starting pitcher JC Ramirez being placed on the DL with an elbow injury.

The results put the Royals, Angels and Mariners half a game behind the Twins for the second Wild Card, with Texas 1 game back, the Rays and Orioles 3 games back and Toronto barely holding on at 5.

Elsewhere, the Cleveland-Boston series lived up to expectations as the two teams played a close contest and shared two wins apiece. Most notable perhaps was the fourth game and the Indians knocking Chris Sale around for the second time in August.

This weekend

In the National League, the Cubs will look to pad their Central lead with a three-game series in Philadelphia, whilst St Louis are hosting the Rays and the Brewers have the tough task of taking on the Dodgers. Yu Darvish may be back on the mound on Sunday after a DL stint, with Clayton Kershaw scheduled to make his latest rehab start in Triple-A on Saturday.

Colorado are in Atlanta for three games, with Arizona hosting the Giants and Miami hosting the Padres.

As for the American League, there are some very interesting match-ups involving the Wild Card hopefuls. The Mariners and Yankees will square off in New York (Sonny Gray and Masahiro Tanaka currently scheduled to pitch on Saturday and Sunday respectively), with the Twins heading to Toronto in a series that could either help the Blue Jays get back into the race, or knock them out of it.

Meanwhile three other teams are facing the leaders of their own division: the Angels against the Astros, the Royals against the Indians and the Orioles against the Red Sox. The team that may fancy their chances of gaining further ground are the Texas Rangers as they take on the Oakland A’s.