The next three weeks are going to be wild.Five of ESPN.coms intrepid MLB beat writers have teams battling it out for wild-card berths as the season hits mid-September: Eddie Matzs Baltimore Orioles, Andrew Marchands New York Yankees, Katie Strangs Detroit Tigers, Adam Rubins New York Mets and Mark Saxons St. Louis Cardinals. (Since theyre currently leading their respective divisions, we let Scott Laubers Boston Red Sox and Doug Padillas Los Angeles Dodgers off the hook -- for now.)We asked each of the above scribes to make a case for why their team has a date with a do-or-die playoff game come October. Then we asked them to respond to each of their colleagues arguments.What we got was -- well, read for yourself. And keep reading until the end, when a surprise judge joins the fray to make a final ruling.OriolesMatz: The Orioles will nab one of the AL wild-card spots because of -- get this -- their starting pitching. No, really. After blowing chunks for most of the season, Baltimores rotation is rounding into shape when it matters most. Ubaldo Jimenez has magically gone from the worst pitcher in baseball to arguably the teams most dependable starter. Kevin Gausman is currently in midair, making the leap. And Chris Tillman looked good as new in his first start back from the DL, which means that the Os can now banish their most glaring weak link (Wade Miley) to the bullpen. Combine that with a homer-happy lineup thats been scoring in bunches lately and the only reason the Birds wouldnt get a wild-card berth is if they win the division outright.Marchand: The Orioles look as if they are prime position to win a wild-card spot, but the inconsistency they have played with over the year is something that has to be a concern. Plus, they might be pitching well now, but do you really trust those starters to come up big?Saxon: Well, something doesnt add up because FiveThirtyEight has them at just 61 percent even to make the playoffs and 4 percent -- behind the Red Sox and Blue Jays -- to win the World Series. Somebody should put back on his designer black frames and remove the rose-colored glasses.Strang: Not sure I see the Orioles sustaining this level of offensive production, which, admittedly, has been absolutely wild. Youd think that at some point, even a lineup as talented as theirs has to cool off. As for the pitching staff, suffice it to say I dont see the triumphant Jimenez comeback story ending the same way Eddie might envision it. And Tillman, though very impressive in his last start against the Tigers, is not out of the woods yet with that shoulder issue. That has to be an area of concern for Baltimore moving forward.Rubin: The Orioles have several potentially fatal flaws. Among them: streaky hitters, an all-or-nothing offense and a fried bullpen. Since the All-Star break, Baltimores 4.50 ERA is second-to-last in the American League, ahead of only the lowly Twins (5.43).YankeesMarchand: For those who think the Yankees will take the wild card, the logic is simple -- they are playing as well as anyone in baseball right now. Despite the fact they have a brutal schedule, those who believe the Yankees will succeed think that going 13-5 in their final 18 games will be no problem. I tend to doubt the Yankees can get to the 89 or 90 wins it will take to win a wild card, but if they go into their final three games against the Orioles with a chance to make the playoffs, that will be a pretty significant accomplishment in itself.Matz: If Marchand himself cant even defend the team he covers (I tend to doubt the Yankees ...), then theres no need for me to pile on. My work here is done.Saxon: Remind me not to hire you if Im looking for someone to sell my house. Those who believe??You were supposed to believe, Andrew. That was the assignment! Since you dont, I dont either.Strang: I imagine the sort of success the Yankees have had since selling off assets at the trade deadline isnt something anyone would have predicted, but eventually the joyride must end. Youth and inexperience will leave the Yanks exposed as the playoff race heats up, with a slew of games against divisional opponents also desperate to nail down a playoff spot.Rubin: Gary Sanchez might be a nice story, but the Yankees simply do not have the pitching horses to get to the 89 to 90 wins it will take to earn a wild-card spot in the American League this year. Furthermore, while playing the teams ahead of them in the standings in a simple sense might seem like an opportunity, it realistically means the Yankees have too steep an uphill battle.TigersStrang: After missing the playoffs last year for the first time since 2010, the Detroit Tigers appear primed to secure a postseason berth in 2016 because their key offensive contributors are swinging the bats well at precisely the right time. Look at the clubs big boppers -- Miguel Cabrera, J.D. Martinez and Justin Upton, who are all crushing the ball in September. Factor in that second baseman Ian Kinsler is also scorching hot this month (.314), and his fellow infielder Nick Castellanos is aiming to return within the next week, and the Tigers have one of the most potent lineups in baseball. Beyond that, the Tigers are in the midst of 17 consecutive games against American League Central teams, providing them ample opportunity to make up ground against divisional opponents.Marchand: If the Tigers dont make the playoffs, it is all on them. While the majority of the wild-card contenders are in the AL East beating each other up, the Tigers only have to just worry about becoming complacent as they face a much easier road.Matz: When it comes the wild card, gaining ground on divisional opponents matters not. What does matter is winning, and given that seven of those 17 AL Central games are against an Indians squad thats owned Detroit this year (11-1), well -- good luck with that.Saxon: You lost me when you started spouting facts and evidence. Im just not a big fan of aging, slugging teams with no athleticism and iffy relief pitching in October.Rubin: The Tigers fatal flaw will be their rotation. In a seven-start stretch that also included an absence for a lat issue, Jordan Zimmermann has a 4.94 ERA. Beyond that, three kids in the rotation are unproven.MetsRubin: Forget the fact that the Mets are among the hottest teams in baseball, having won 16 of 21 games entering the week. The Mets will reach the postseason as a wild-card entrant primarily because of their soft schedule the remainder of the season. After completing a series on Wednesday against the Nationals, the Mets do not play another game against a team with a winning record. Meanwhile, the Cardinals and Giants -- the competitors for the NLs two wild-card spots -- have to play each other four times beginning Thursday. The Cardinals also have two series remaining against the Cubs, while the Giants have two series remaining against the Dodgers.Marchand: The biggest reason not to believe in the Mets is because they are the Mets. Their tortured history is replete with epic failures in the face of victories. Could one more be on the horizon?Matz: As my mother will tell you, Im a good boy who follows directions, and my marching orders here were to shoot a hole in every one of these theories (except mine, of course). To do that, Im calling on my experience with logic puzzles back in Mrs. Harris fifth-grade math class. If the Mets and Cardinals arent wild cards (which, per my instructions, they cant be), then the wild cards must be the second-place NL West team (Giants or Dodgers), and the ... Marlins?Saxon: When you put it that way, its kind of hard to argue. I guess Ill just go with, Its the Mets, Adam, and leave it at that.Strang: Heading into spring training, I picked the Mets to win it all this year, and a big reason was their stable of impressive young pitchers. Fast-forward six months and the staff looks, well, quite a bit different. No?Matt Harvey. No Jacob deGrom. No Steven Matz. That certainly hasnt seemed to hurt the Mets lately, but even with a crazy favorable schedule to finish out the year, one has to wonder whether the sum of all the injuries -- and not just those to the pitching staff -- eventually takes its toll.CardinalsSaxon: If you believe the moral of the old fable The Tortoise and the Hare, then you buy that the Cardinals will reach the NL wild-card game. While the other two contenders, the Mets and Giants, have had wild swings of fortune this season, the Cardinals have just kept plodding along. Their longest losing streak this season is five games. Their longest winning streak is five games. They came one right after the other in mid-June. So all they have to do is continue their steady-as-it-goes approach and one of the other two contenders figures to beat itself. The other thing they have going for them: Starting Thursday, the best road team in baseball has 10 of its final 17 games away from Busch Stadium. If they get into the postseason, who knows? Maybe theyll finally get hot.Marchand: This does not feel like a classic Cardinals team. They have been great on the road, but that could be reaching its expiration point.Matz: See Matz on Mets.Strang: The Cards had dropped four of their past six games heading into Tuesdays action, including Mondays loss, in which they mustered just one hit off Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks (who, granted, has been lights-out against pretty much everyone in recent months) and saw Matt Carpenter exit the game with back tightness. More concerning is that St. Louis still has another set against the Cubs before closing out the season with a seven-game homestand. That stretch at home should be a good thing, especially considering their caliber of competition -- except for the fact, as Saxon astutely pointed out, that the Cards have been awful at Busch Stadium this year.Rubin: We already covered the disparity in schedule strength the remainder of the season to justify why the Mets will reach the postseason over St. Louis. Now lets zero in on the Cardinals swoon, which is being fueled by inconsistent starting pitching, erratic defense and a glaring lack of setup men. Jaime Garcia produced an 8.06 ERA in a five-start stretch through last Thursday. Meanwhile, Aledmys Diaz has only a .957 fielding percentage, with 16 errors through 93 games at shortstop.The above -- vs. the rest of the fieldJudge David Schoenfield: Lets start with the American League, where Im sentencing Matz to watching the 1988 Orioles highlight tape after he invoked Jimenez as evidence of a strengthening rotation. Sure hes had four good starts in a row. However, its still Ubaldo Jimenez, and four good starts merely means four bad ones are likely to follow. Also the Orioles are under .500 since July 1, and is that Michael Bourn and Drew Stubbs Im seeing in their outfield?As the saying goes, rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel. This court cant rule in favor of the Yankees, even with this cute little story they have going on with these kids and this no-name pitching staff. You know whats not so cute though? They still have five players making $20 million-plus, if you include the departed Alex Rodriguez. Those five guys make more than 13 entire teams. So enough with this nonsense that the Yankees are some Little Engine That Could. Also, the court fines Marchand to repeated viewings of the bottom of the ninth of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series for his cheap shot against the Mets.So the judge rules in favor of Strang and the Tigers. The schedule is the key here, with four games left against the Twins, three against the rapidly expiring Royals and three to finish the season against the hapless Braves. Yes, they do have seven games against the Indians and -- hold on, you say theyre 1-11 against Cleveland? They lost to the Twins on Tuesday? Maybe we should be thinking of the scorching-hot Mariners here instead?But because the Mariners never win anything ...Ruling: Blue Jays and TigersNow, over in the NL, I cant believe this race is still going on. I think the Mets just signed Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman for the rotation. How have the Giants and Cardinals not pulled away? Anyway, Rubin has presented irrefutable evidence: The Mets schedule is softer than the Wilpons bank account, with only one of their remaining 17 games against a team currently with a winning record.Saxons argument for the Cardinals basically boils down to Theyre the Cardinals. Thats actually a good argument! Did you know cockroaches can survive without food for a month? Thats the Cardinals. Its how theyve made the playoffs the past five seasons and 12 out of the past 16. It also helps that the Giants have seemingly cracked here in the second half, with Bruce Bochy managing his bullpen like a 12-year-old boy who just ate three dozen doughnuts while downing a supersized Slurpee.Ruling: Mets and Cardinals Cheap Authentic Ray Ban Sunglasses . World champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia won the gold medal with 237.71 points, Moore-Towers and Moscovitch followed at 208.45 and Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov of Russia were third at 187. Cheap Ray Ban Sunglasses China . Didier Drogba gave away the penalty that put Senegal one goal away from a major upset, but the veteran striker will get another chance -- probably his last -- at the World Cup after Salomon Kalous injury-time strike sealed the Ivorians place in Brazil next year. http://www.cheaprayban.net/ . The third-ranked Ivanovic, who won the event in 2008 and 10, served five aces and broke Wickmayer, also a former winner in 2009, five times. "The result looked easier than it really was," Ivanovic said. Ray Ban Sunglasses Wholesale . Just not the game. Kyle Palmieri scored two straight goals in the third period to rally the Anaheim Ducks past the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 on Tuesday night. Ray Ban Sunglasses China Wholesale . The Vikings announced Thursday that Priefer will be one of seven holdovers from the previous staff, along with offensive line coach Jeff Davidson, wide receivers coach George Stewart and others. Norv Turner will mark his 30th year of coaching in the NFL as the offensive co-ordinator, as widely reported for weeks, and George Edwards will be the defensive co-ordinator. RIO DE JANEIRO -- The young athlete, now competing at the Rio Games, always considered herself to be a girl just like the others, a girl who loved to run. Then the governing body of track and field told her she was different, so different that her track career could be over.Marked confidential and signed best sporting regards, the letter outlined a choice for the athlete: Open herself up to a panel of medical experts who could recommend surgery or chemical treatment to reduce her testosterone levels or stop competing.She had fallen foul of International Association of Athletics Federations rules aimed at providing a level playing field for women by keeping out athletes with high testosterone, a naturally occurring strength-building hormone.Writing to the man who ran track and field in the athletes country, the IAAFs medical director at the time explained that blood and urine tests detected testosterone levels that were abnormally high for a woman. The suspected cause, wrote Dr. Gabriel Dolle, wasnt doping but another hot-button issue in athletics that is likely to flare in this final week of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics: hyperandrogenism.Had the athlete not been a runner, she might never have known of her condition. It was flagged by the IAAFs tests that look for banned drugs. She was stunned and uncomprehending when told that her testosterone pointed to hyperandrogenism, her then-coach told The Associated Press.She couldnt understand. It was shock, the coach said. I said, Youre not alone. There are others.Thus started a months-long process of medical scrutiny, trips to foreign clinics for batteries of tests and potentially life-changing choices shrouded in medical secrecy that makes it hard to investigate the IAAFs treatment of hyperandrogenic women.The AP will not name the athlete, the country she is competing for, or give details, including racing achievements, that could help identify her. In messages with the AP, she said she is focusing on competition and that her story is personal and private.The IAAF letter and exclusive AP interview with the athletes former coach, who was intimately involved in her eventual decision to agree to testosterone-curbing treatment, shed unprecedented light on the inner workings of the IAAF process that at least 14 women have gone through.The unwilling face of this complex and excruciatingly sensitive issue, Caster Semenya, will race in Rio starting Wednesday and likely win gold in the 800 meters. Believed to be hyperandrogenic, outed as physiologically different without her consent when she won the world championship in the 800 in 2009, the South Africans dominance has again pushed to the fore divisive questions about whether allowing women to compete with testosterone levels far above the female norm is fair and whether the hormones attributed performance-enhancing effects are significantly greater than other natural gifts, like height for basketball players or big feet for swimmers.It is not publicly known how many hyperandrogenic women are competing in Rio, but a study published in 2014 by Dolle and other medical experts calculated that seven out of 1,000 elite female athletes may be hyperandrogenic, 140 times higher than expected among the general population. Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition that causes a person to produce high levels of hormones and can be caused by differences in sexual development.Having not withstood a legal challenge brought by another female athlete at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the IAAF regulations are on hold, suspended by the CAS since July 2015. That means hyperandrogenic women can compete in Rio without having to artificially control their testosterone levels.The CAS case was brought by Dutee Chand, an Indian sprinter who challenged the rules after she was suspended and who, like Semenya, saw intimate medical details become fodder for public debate.God wanted to bring a change [in the rules] through me, Chand told the AP before competing in 100-meter qualifying Friday.Speaking as fast as she runs, the sprinter said she has put the ordeal behind her and is relishing the Olympic experience. She longs to meet Usain Bolt.By the time I came to know about my problems, the issue already was out in the open, the 20-year-old said. Everyone supported me. I dont worry about what has happened in the past.The coach who spoke to the AP praised Chands resistance against the IAAF rules, saying: Thank goodness that there were courageous people who protested.To avoid identifying the athlete, the AP will not identify the coach. As her confidant during the process, the coach was involved in her decision-making, including choosing hormone therapy instead of surgery to lower her testtosterone.dddddddddddd The IAAF letter says the coach was present during a meeting with a federation representative when a follow-up sample was taken from the athlete to confirm the diagnosis of hyperandrogenism.The IAAF letter explaining the medical process facing the athlete was provided to the AP by a former federation representative who was involved in the implementation of the hyperandrogenism regulations. The governing body introduced them in 2011 after the furor that followed Semenyas world title in Berlin. There was widespread criticism of track officials handling of her case, including leaking without her consent that she had undergone sex testing. I have been subjected to unwarranted and invasive scrutiny of the most intimate and private details of my being, Semenya subsequently complained.The APs source said the IAAF regulations were ensnaring athletes from developing countries with little education or the financial means to contest the rules and forcing them to either accept medical treatment or stop competing. The AP is not naming the former federation official because he wasnt authorized to release the letter.During the IAAF process, the athlete could not compete. The coach explained her absence by lying that she was injured.The first IAAF-requested tests to determine the exact nature of her condition required a trip to another nations capital, where she was met by Dolle. That was followed by two trips to a clinic in Nice, France, all paid for by the IAAF, the coach said.The first Nice trip was accompanied, but the second, lasting over a week, was not because the IAAF did not want to pay for someone to go with her, said the coach.I didnt want her to go alone. She didnt speak French very well. I was afraid she wouldnt understand, the coach said. I said, Before you take any medicine, call me. Dont take anything. The doctors say, Its for her good. And I thought to myself, `Shes fine as she is.... They said, `Were doing tests to help you. Maybe they gave her details, but she didnt understand. She just knew that they were saying she had to have the tests to come back to track, and she accepted because that is what they wanted.After the second Nice trip, subsequent correspondence from Dolle offered the athlete two choices: surgery or medicinal treatment, said the coach. The coach urged her not to go under the surgeons knife, fearing the irreversible effects.I said to her, We cant take this risk, cut things off that God gave you, the coach said. When things are cut off, its forever. You cant get those parts back.Other athletes consented to surgery. Doctors in Nice reported in 2013 that they operated on four hyperandrogenic women, ages 18 to 21 and from rural or mountainous regions of developing countries, cutting out gonads and partially removing their clitorises. The athletes were told that surgery would most likely dent their athletic performances but allow them to continue competing, the doctors reported. They said the women were allowed to resume competition one year later.The coach said the rules discriminate against women because there arent equivalent rules for men.It punishes women because there is no law that bans some men because they are more manly than others, the coach said.The coach lamented a lack of detailed information from the IAAF about the surgery or medicinal therapy.Youre told just that it is bringing your level down to the level of other women, the coach said.The athlete continued to train while suspended.She was desperate to run, the coach said. She kept saying, Im taking the medicine. Why cant I run?Side effects from the treatment included weight gain and making the athlete smell awful, sweaty and dirty, even though she stayed clean and wore deodorant and perfume, the coach said. The smell vanished when she came off the treatment, the coach added.The treatment was administered by a doctor in her country who reported back to the IAAF. The treatment did not lead to a huge dip in her running performances.When the IAAF eventually gave the athlete the green light to resume competing, she was delighted, the coach said. But the CAS only suspended the regulations, rather than overturning them entirely, giving the IAAF until July 2017 to produce evidence that high testosterone gives hyperandrogenic women a significant performance advantage.She is free, but she is scared that from one day to the next they could stop her from running again, the coach said. Shes in limbo, waiting for something bad to happen. She asks, Are they going to stop me again? Are they going to make me take more medicine? ' ' '