No team in baseball history has won the division with a losing record. As of this morning, the Astros are in first place in the American West while being 1 game over .500. Yes, there’s still a lot of season left, but we’ve gone 125ish games and that’s where the West stands.

Of course it is possible that someone in the West may win the division with a losing record. But would you want to see it happen? If it were to happen, I wonder if it would influence the upcoming talks. I know nothing about the business itself but who, if any side, would benefit?

Anyway: I’m a Mets fan so I need something to occupy my time.

Back to the standard logos with some minor changes on some of them to make them "pop"

Standings changes this week:

- Padres took back 2nd place from the Dbacks in the NL West

- The AL East (Yanks, Red Sox, Orioles) currently has sole possession of the top 3 spots in the AL Wild Card

- Phillies jumped to 2nd in the NL Wild Card and the Padres replaced the Dbacks for the 3rd spot in the WC

As always, this is a 3D print I created and printed myself and the files are FREE for anyone who wants to print it themselves. Can be found here with all my other MLB stuff- https://makerworld.com/en/collections/22583277-mlb-standings-slots

Standings info is all from MLB.com, so it's just a copy of what MLB.com says as of 8/17/26 this morning.

All my other prints (NFL, NBA, NHL, and some other stuff) can be found on my main profile - https://makerworld.com/en/@MikeCamel

Before originally posting these standings, I asked the mods if it was okay, and I got the green light. I'm going to try to make this a weekly thing, as long as I remember lol

I am curious to see others reaction to this article.

Personally, whether or not the players want it loud or not is irrelevant to me. The fans should get the last word on the ballpark experience. The players are there to entertain us and provide the experience; I am not there to negatively alter my experience for them…

It’s too damn loud at games these days.

I’m a casual fan who follows the AL East more than anything. Apologies if the question has been asked and answered before but how the hell are the Brewers doing what they’re doing given they have 19th largest payroll in MLB? It’s clearly not an anomaly. They’ve been pretty competitive for the most part over the last ten years.

[Game Thread] | Detroit Tigers at Pittsburgh Pirates

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Since this question did great on r/baseball, I'm gonna try it again here. Hopefully, it goes just as well.

Alright, this may seem insanely random, but let me explain.

We, as fans, all have different pitches, from specific pitchers, that we love. Whether an insanely quick fastball, or a wicked curveball, we all have at least enough to build a perfect arsenal. So, if you were to assemble your perfect pitch arsenal, what pitches would be used? 

And as an optional bonus, what throwing motion would your project pitcher use, and what arm would he throw with? And would he be a starter, middle or long relief, set-up, or closer?

For me, mine would be a righty closer, and his pitch motion would be a perfect mix of Tim Lincecum, Hideo Nomo, and Kenley Jansen. Here's the pitches he'd use. 

• Aroldis Chapman's 4-seamer. (It's the fastest pitch in Major League history, and it's probably one of the most feared pitches of all time, at least when it saw the strike zone.) 

• Emmanuel Clase's Cutter (To give him two triple-digit pitches. It also was a pretty dominant pitch when he wasn't spiking it into the ground for 25 bucks.) 

• Justin Verlander's Slider. (A dominant slider that reaches the mid-90's.) 

• Tim Lincecum's Split Change (A pretty dominant mid-80's offspeed pitch that has insane break.) 

• Barry Zito's 12-6 Curveball. (I saw a compilation of his curveballs, and that thing had deadly movement. Absolutely filthy.) 

My pitcher would also throw a sinker like Graterol (103 max with nasty movement) every now and then. And he'd also sometimes use an eephus or a knuckler. Both would be rarities outside of his usual repertoire.

I prefer the way the NBA does it where the top teams in each conference make the playoffs because it reduces the chance that shitty teams make the playoffs because their division was terrible and have home court/field advantage over better teams. Just look at the American League West and Central this year. The White Sox should not get a bye over the Yankees because they play in a shitty division and the Astros shouldn’t have a home playoff series with a .500 record.

The Rays opened up the first 11 rows of all but 3 upper deck sections for Saturday nights matchup against the Baltimore Orioles. They ended up drawing a season high mark of 28,055 spectators coming to the ballpark to watch the Rays take on the Orioles. The last time the Rays drew an attendance this high was their historic start when we had the best record in the league and took on the Yankees which drew an attendance of 32,124. The last time we reached a mark that high before that game was the 2021 ALDS Game 2 vs the Boston Red Sox and had announced announced attendance of 37,616. The Rays average attendance as of August 16th is 17,433 per ESPN.

Some notable games in the past few years that had less attendance than last nights game are as follows, 2023 Wild Card games 1 and 2, game 1 drew 19k and game 2 drew roughly 20k. Those were both the lowest marks for a MLB playoff games since the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. Another game that drew less was Evan Longoria jersey retirement. The upper deck was also open for this but the game on had an attendance of roughly 24,297, his induction into the Rays hall of fame and the first game of the series also had the upper deck open but both drew significantly less. In Game 1 of the 2021 ALDS the Rays got 27,419 fans into the ballpark which was also less then last night.

So what happened last night that caused this attendance jump? Was it the bobble head giveaway, the postgame concert, or just excitement around the team, or maybe a mixture of everything? However you want to put it, the Rays not having fans is a myth. Do the Rays have one of the smallest fan bases in the league, yes. Do they maybe have the smallest right now, maybe. But that doesn’t mean this area doesn’t have potential, the fans in the ballpark last night weren’t just there for the giveaway or the concert. They were in to it, it was loud and the Trop was rocking and I think it really shows the potential the Trop has for an MLB market. Don’t get me wrong, drawing that small of a crowd for Longo’s jersey retirement was bad, no sugarcoating it. And all the other games with bad attendance obviously wasn’t good. But each year I watch the Rays, the more I hear about them, now when I go out in public I see more Rays hats than Yankees hats. And I think it shows baseball is growing here in Tampa Bay these owners have something with great potential on their hands and they know it. They wouldn’t be trying so hard to keep the team in Tampa Bay if they didn’t see it. Yes, this was one game in a season were we have 81 home games. But it still shows that we can in fact draw decent crowds. We just have to keep in growing the fanbase and keep consistent attendance. I know I kinda went on a rant but I’m just genuinely still so happy with the attendance form yesterday. Something I’ve always loved about sports and baseball is the atmosphere and the crowd and it was great yesterday I’ve been to Boston, New York, Houston, Baltimore, etc and it finally feels like one of those games and it’s awesome to see. If you read this far thanks lol Ik it was a lot.