The Oakland Athletics visit the Kansas City Royals Tuesday in the American League one-game Wild Card playoff game.
Starting pitchers are:
Athletics: Jon Lester, 16.4 Box-Toppers points, ranked sixth among AL pitchers, 12th overall.
Royals: James Shields, 13.7 Box-Toppers points, ranked 11th among AL pitchers, 22nd overall.
While the Royals have one more win on the season than the Athletics (89 vs. 88), the Athletics have a wide lead in team Box-Toppers points—117.6 vs. 101.1. The Athletics rank third overall and second among AL teams while the Royals rank 10th overall, sixth among AL teams.
The Athletics led Box-Toppers team rankings much of the season and were bolstered by mid-season trades that brought in Lester from the Red Sox and Jason Hammel and Jeff Samardzija from the Cubs. However, the Athletics slumped after those trades, fell out of Box-Toppers team rankings top spot and were in danger of not making the postseason. In fact, the Athletics were the final team to qualify for a postseason spot with their win Sunday.
The winner of Tuesday’s AL Wild Card game will face the Los Angeles Angels in the best-of-five AL Division Series beginning Thursday in Los Angeles. The Angels are the top-ranked team in Box-Toppers rankings with 124.2 Box-Toppers points.
Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.