Here is the AL West after Thursday:
Houston 79-80. Texas 79-80. Seattle is five back. The Athletics and Angels are not in the conversation and have not been for a while.
Both teams won on Thursday, which counts as a surge by recent standards. Texas had lost three in a row before beating the Mets 3-1. Houston had won three of its previous 10 before beating the Athletics 7-5.
Now the math, which is where it gets beautiful.
Each team has three games left. The best either one can do is 82-80. According to CBS Sports, the worst record ever for a playoff team in a full season belongs to the 2005 Padres, who won the NL West at 82-80. So the best-case scenario for the AL West champion is to tie the worst-case scenario in history.
And CBS points out that no team has ever reached the postseason with a losing record in a full season. At 79-80, with the Twins and the Athletics standing between them and 162, both of these teams are still very capable of being the first.
Houston holds the tiebreaker, having won the season series from Texas 9-4. So if they finish even, the Astros take the division. The Rangers finish in Minnesota, the Astros in Sacramento, and neither of them plays the other again. Nobody has to look anyone in the eye.
The whole division is 83 games under .500, combined. That is not a typo. We did it on a napkin twice.
In defense of the AL West: somebody has to win it. That’s the rule. Six months, 162 games, and at the end the division champion goes to the playoffs whether or not it looked like one.
We love that rule. It’s the most honest rule in sports. It says baseball is a game of failure, and that the prize goes to whoever fails a little less.
This weekend, that’s the whole race. May the less bad team win.