The final month of the 2008 campaign offered plenty of drama for Baseball fans.

Unfortunately, it appears the suspense about most of this year's divisional races is already over.

Going into Saturday, only two of the six races could be considered remotely close, as the Los Angeles Angels led the Texas Rangers by 3 1/2 games and the Dodgers led the Colorado Rockies by 4 1/2 games.

"We need to play and we need to win," St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter told MLB.com when asked if his team's motivation is now to have the best record in the NL, since it's 11 1/2 games ahead of the second-place Cubs. "When we clinch the division, we can look at that. We need to come and play every single night, as hard as we can, the way we've been doing all year.

"When we get to the point of wondering or caring about who's got the best record, who we'll be playing or where we'll be at ... we're not there yet. We've got a long way to go."

That leaves the wild-card chases as the only real chance for some drama down the stretch, and it's likely that the races between the Rockies and Giants and the Red Sox and Rangers will come down to the final weekend.

Otherwise, it's not too difficult to figure out who at least 75 percent of the playoff teams will be.

And that's usually not the case. From 2004-2007, a combined 12 of the 24 division winners had final leads of three games or less.

GOING SOUTH: Chicago White Sox general manager Kenny Williams didn't make too many new friends on the South Side, or in San Francisco, for that matter, by trading designated hitter Jim Thome to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday.

But with the way the Sox have played recently, it's hard to blame Williams for wanting to take a look at other players in the final four weeks of the season.

Williams said he dealt pitcher Jose Contreras to the Colorado Rockies and Thome to the Dodgers in an attempt to give both players a better shot at playing in the World Series.

But Williams said he didn't want it to appear as if he's raising the white flag on his own team's season. Rather, he wanted to take a look at players such as Jermaine Dye, Paul Konerko and Carlos Quentin in the designated hitter spot and some younger pitchers in the rotation.

This deal wouldn't have happened at the end of July when the Sox were 1 1/2 games behind first-place Detroit.

But before Saturday, Chicago was seven games back of the Tigers and in third place in the division behind Minnesota.

"I think that anybody that has spent any significant time with me whatsoever knows that (I'm not giving up hope)," Williams told the Chicago Tribune.

"... If we were not in position to take (Thome's DH) spot and put a quality hitter in that place, then I don't probably even go down the (trade route)."

THIS AND THAT: Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp is the fourth major leaguer since 1952 to have 10 or more extra-inning RBI in a season. The others are Juan Gonzalez (11 in 1991), Jim Presley (10 in 1986) and Tim Wallach (11 in 1982). ... Baltimore has registered 30 outfield assists, the most in the American League, by throwing out 12 runners at the plate, 12 at third base, five at second and one at first. "... Florida's Hanley Ramirez, through Friday, was batting .358. He has a chance to top Rico Carty's record for highest batting average in the big leagues by a Dominican-born player. Carty hit .366 to win the 1970 NL batting title.

Information from other writers was used in this notebook. Contact Curtis Pashelka at cpashelka@bayareanewsgroup.com