You play 157 games and figure by that time you ought to know where you stand.

No such luck.

The A’s now have five games at home to right the ship. The Angels have five games on the road to win the West.

Baseball wisdom tells me that the home team will prevail, but the A’s pitching has been abysmal. If they don’t get it right over the next two days with Rich Harden, their best starter, and Mark Redman, their worst starter at home, then it will be a tough weekend at the Coliseum. You don’t want to go in to that series down a game or two.

To make matters more appealing for Oakland, the Angels are throwing their pitchers this week on three days rest. I love the throwback to the days of Spahn, Ford, Drysdale, and Marichal, but I haven’t seen that plan work in the last 20 years.

If the A’s don’t get this one right it will be a huge upset.

Click below for more.Big players step up in big games. Vladimir Guerrero is doing just that. Yaz did it for the Red Sox in ’67, Giambi did it for the A’s in 2000, Guerrero is doing it for the Angels right now.

The Yankees starting pitching has gone south at the worst possible time. El Duque’s shoulder is tired and worn out. No surprise since the man wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a spot starter for someone this year. With all the injuries and failures with the Yankee staff, El Duque has had to pitch like a youngster, unfortunately, he blew his shoulder out again in the process.

Mike Mussina now becomes the ace of the staff. I don’t care which team you are, you want the Yankees first this October, not Boston.

Javier Vazquez has no juice on his fastball, Kevin Brown has a broken hand to go along with his awful season, and Jon Lieber gives up 9 hits every six innings pitched.

Can the Yankees hit their way through October?

No! It won’t happen.

The Dodgers will win the West in spite of the terrible meltdown by Milton Bradley last night. Bradley is on the edge 24/7, and let it fly in the game Tuesday night when he reacted to a plastic bottle thrown in his direction from some fan in the low right field bleachers.

More than likely he will be suspended, but it won’t take effect until next season. He really needs medication and anger management more than anything.

The Dodgers pitching is so much up in the clouds, that no matter what they do this week, they are gone first round, without a doubt.

Are the Cards tanking it so the Astros can knock the Cubs out?

No denying how much St. Louis dislikes Chicago and the prospect of seeing the Cubs on the sidelines in October must excite Tony La Russa greatly.

The Cubs can’t get any consistent performances from its big five and Moises Alou has become a royal pain in the butt, challenging the press, the announcers, and now the discipline system of major league baseball.

Giants won’t go away and I still say they are playing the best ball of the three wild card contenders. If the Dodgers clinch before Friday, the Giants might roll them up in LA over the weekend and sneak in.

Houston gets one more shot at St. Louis, then three with Colorado to finish up.

After watching the Rockies implode against LA, both at home and on the road, why is Clint Hurdle still the exalted ruler of the Rockies? I realize the pitchers blew up in all these late losses, but at some point you have to get them out before the fatal blow is struck.

The Twins play two in NY today. If the Twins have a better record than the winner in the West, they get the AL East winner first round. If NY holds on and wins the East, the Twins might get lucky and beat NY if Johan Santana is the real deal.

Anyway, the Twins are looking for home field in the second round if they get that far, and that is a big deal.

The Braves are getting a lot of injuries at the wrong time. Jaret Wright got hit on the ankle last night. John Smoltz gets hit hard on the mound. Looks like another early exit for Atlanta unless they play Houston in the wild card round.

Five games to go and here I thought the story would be done by now.

No way.