MLB Playoffs

As August comes to a close and September draws near, playoff baseball is just on the horizon.

The dog days of August have separated contenders from the pack, obliterated the pretenders back to earth and created some interesting playoff races. 

Anything can happen once a team makes the playoffs, so this article will be encouragement to fans as to why their team can do the distance this season. They'll have renewed and justified hope that their team can win the World Series in 2015.

It's around middle to late August when the games start to truly matter. There are about 40 to 45 games left in each MLB team's regular season, and this weekend has a few games that might clear the playoff picture a little bit.

"Playoffs? Don't talk about playoffs. Are you kidding me, playoffs?"

No Jim Mora, we're not kidding. We're going to talk about the playoffs.

A casual baseball fan I know said the other day that this is a good season, because there are so many good teams.

Meanwhile, a favorite topic among those who follow the game a lot closer is that there just aren't many great teams.

Either way, we should be headed for some real fun over the next six-and-a-half weeks. Even with the two Central Division races basically decided, that still leaves four division crowns and four wild-card spots up for grabs. It leaves the possibility of surprise teams getting in and of big-money powerhouses getting left out.

With under 50 games left in the MLB regular season, roughly half (or more) of teams are within striking distance of the division or one of the wild-card spots.

In particular, four playoff races seem to be the tightest at the moment: AL East, AL Wild Card, AL West and the NL West.

September baseball is right around the corner, and several teams still have excellent opportunities to make a playoff run. However, not all teams will be as lucky, and some recent slumps by the Washington Nationals, Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays might be too much to overcome.

Only a handful of games separate teams vying for wild-card spots, and most of those teams play each other at least one more time the rest of the way. Look for the teams with the most consistencies slowly begin to make a move to the top.

No team has officially qualified for the 2015 MLB playoffs just yet, but the league already has the postseason structure in place for this October and November.

Fox Sports: MLB provided the dates and viewing info for every game:    

Major League Baseball's next two weeks can tell a lot about a team. Postseason hopefuls try to prove they're for real while others quietly fade away into mediocrity. 

The August 31 waiver trade deadline forces teams to competitively show their hand before the final month of the season. This week offers some notable series matchups around the league that could determine the playoff fate of several teams. 

The Kansas City Royals are a stone-cold lock to win the American League Central, but the rest of baseball's division and wild-card races are still far from determined.

As Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times noted, while the Royals have claimed a 12-game edge in the AL Central, the other five division front-runners have a combined lead of 11.5 games. Simply put, there's a lot left to be decided between now and the end of the season.

With both the American League and National League Championship Series matchups wrapping up quickly, the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants both have some downtime now before the World Series gets underway Tuesday night.

Travis Ishikawa became a postseason hero on Thursday with his walk-off home run against the Cardinals in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series.

Tied 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning, the first baseman-turned-left fielder’s three-run blast clinched the NL pennant for the San Francisco Giants, sending the team to its third World Series appearance in the last five years.