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Could be a September to remember
Sports Illustrated's Stephen Cannella checks in with his baseball thoughts every week throughout the season on CNNSI.com. September looms. It's the month in which playoff spots are secured and frittered away, MVP awards won and lost. Usually those two laurels go hand in hand -- Jason Giambi salted away the American League MVP trophy by almost singlehandedly carrying Oakland to a division title last September. Chipper Jones did the same in 1999, when his strong final month (and a September slowdown by Robin Ventura) pushed the Braves past the Mets in the NL East. There's a lot to be decided this September, especially in the National League, where, as of Thursday morning, five teams were bunched within two games of each other in the wild card race. There's also no clear-cut MVP frontrunner in the senior circuit. Barry Bonds? Sammy Sosa? Shawn Green? Moises Alou? Luis Gonzalez? One of these players can take giant leap ahead in the MVP race by leading his club to a postseason spot. But even the supermen will need help. Assuming the stars play the way we expect them to down the stretch, here are the lesser-known players who may hold the keys to the NL wild card race. Fred McGriff, Cubs. Chicago waited out McGriff's hemming and hawing at the trade deadline because they knew, even with Sosa's heroics, their offense was short on firepower without him. (Of course, having acquired McGriff, the Cubs still may not have enough.) Crime Dog hit three homers and knocked in 17 runs in his first 27 games with Chicago. Not bad, but the Cubs' feeble lineup needs the 37-year-old to go on a more impressive tear down the stretch. McGriff admitted this week that he was anxious and was trying to pull every pitch he sees. If that continues, the Cubs will likely pull out of the playoff race. J.T. Snow, Giants. When Snow returned earlier this month from his third disabled list stint of the season, there seemed to be no place for him in the lineup. The Giants went 15-1 when Andres Galarraga joined the team and took over at first base. Why tinker with success? Because manager Dusty Baker is supremely loyal to his players; rather than go with Galarraga's hot hand and bury Snow on the bench, he has instituted a platoon at first. That means Snow, a left-handed hitter, will get plenty of at-bats down the stretch. Since coming back, he's batted .347, and on Monday he hit a key home run -- just his second since May -- to beat the Mets. With opponents likely to pitch around Bonds, an offensive surge by Snow is critical to San Francisco's postseason chances. Eric Karros, Dodgers. LA's first baseman has been mired in a season-long slump, one that has him batting .231 with 13 homers and 52 RBIs. His .274 average with runners in scoring position has to improve in September. Dropped to sixth in the order, Karros should see plenty of RBI opportunities hitting behind Green, Gary Sheffield and Paul Lo Duca, all of whom have good on-base percentages. With their patchwork rotation, the Dodgers may have to outslug opponents to reach October. They won't be able to do so without help from Karros. Turk Wendell, Phillies. Wendell, who, along with Dennis Cook, was imported from the Mets in July to bring pennant-race experience to the bullpen, has been awful (11.32 ERA, four home runs allowed) since arriving in Philadelphia. (Cook, with a 7.20 ERA, hasn't fared much better.) Phillies pitching coach Vern Ruhle has been searching for a mechanical reason for Wendell's problems, but the right-hander insisted last weekend that he's simply fighting through a slump and will snap out of it. He also ripped Philadelphia fans for booing him. For the sake of fan support, to say nothing of his importance to a bullpen that is backing up a rotation with three rookies, Wendell must pitch well. "We have to get Turk straightened out," says manager Larry Bowa. "We need him big time." Unidentical TwinsRemember when the Twins were chasing a division title? A playoff spot now seems less and less likely with each passing day. Through Wednesday, Minnesota was 5 1/2 games behind Cleveland in the AL Central, despite having won four of its last five games. But there's still drama in the Twins' season: Even with that short burst of success, they were in danger of claiming the Sybil Award as the most schizophrenic team of all time. At the All-Star break, Minnesota was 55-32, a .632 winning percentage. Since then they've gone 15-31, a .326 clip. If the Twins continue at that pace, the .306-point difference between their first- and second-half winning percentages would be by far the largest drop since 1933, the year of the first midseason All-Star game. Here are the teams that have suffered the 10 worst second-half meltdowns (courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau).
Sports Illustrated staff writer Stephen Cannella covers the baseball beat for
the magazine. Touching Base appears every week on CNNSI.com.
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