Even in a wild year, hard to see a wild card

You don’t have to be Abner Doubleday to grasp why Major League Baseball loves wild-card teams.

Between now and the end of September, somewhere between six and eight teams – not to mention their ticket-buying fans – will cling to dreams of making the playoffs.

We’re looking at you, Seattle.

The Mariners finally reached the coveted .500 mark on Sunday, thrashing the Mets 9-1 and hauling their record to 53-53.

Now, seriously, a team that loses as often as it wins really shouldn’t be thinking of a World Series run, but...

That’s the world of wild-card lotteries.

The Mariners were only 3 1/2 games adrift of the American League’s second wild-card spot when they reached .500 on the strength of James Paxton’s club-record sixth victory in July.

Heck, they sat only four games out of the league’s FIRST wild-card slot on Sunday night.

THERE ARE seasons when the wild-card entrants make sense.

Not just to sell tickets and keep patrons’ minds off football for an extra several weeks — but because MLB really has hit a stretch of parity.

In those years, I could give you any one of 10 teams as a possible World Series winner and you’d have to say, “Hmmm, yeah, I could see that.”

Unfortunately, there are other seasons when two (or maybe three) teams are so much better than the rest of MLB that the chasing pack isn’t even visible in the rear-view mirror.

We saw it last year when the Cubs and Indians clearly were the class of their leagues – and proved it by playing a seven-game Series.

It’s hard to believe, but this season two different teams have lapped the field.

The Dodgers might be the best team we’ve seen in a couple of decades, and yet Houston looks just about as good.

What a World Series THAT could be!

So we’ve had back-to-back seasons when wild cards not only seem irrelevant, but almost like gate-crashers turning up for a high-society wedding dressed in jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirts.

And before you raise your voice... Yes, a wild-card team COULD win it all this year.

IT JUST wouldn’t feel right.

What I’ve got to admit, though, is that baseball is the perfect sport for sudden playoff dashes.

Football basically comes down to better teams winning, but baseball?

If one or two pitchers get hot for a couple of weeks, you’ve got the great equalizer.

Ironically, the Mariners are the type of team that could win the World Series – their first ever – if they can just squeeze into a wild-card spot.

I promise you that no playoff team in either league would want to see Paxton and Felix Rodriguez in a short series.

Houston, you say?

Seattle just won two of three from the Astros a couple of weeks ago.

We mentioned Paxton’s six wins. To put his month in perspective, the last pitcher to win six games in July with an ERA under 1.50 was Steve Carlton in 1972.

Still, it might be a stretch to haul the Mariners into the playoffs. When you’re making a last-minute trade for Erasmo Ramirez, a part-time starter with a 4.80 ERA...

Well...

It doesn’t really feel like a wild-card year, but there WILL be four of them in the playoff field.

Seattle’s as good as anyone in the bunch.

Just don’t bet your lunch money.

Steve Cameron is a special assignment reporter for The Press. Reach Steve: [email protected].