The 2008 Season In The Week Before the All-Star Break

The 2008 MLB season is five games past it's halfway point, and things are looking very weird almost to the point of perversion.

First off, let's go to the standings. In the AL East, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are in the lead, 3 games ahead of the Boston Red Sox and 9 games ahead of the New York Yankees. First off, no team other then Boston or New York has held the lead in the AL East this late or later in the season since the Baltimore Orioles lost the lead on July 10th 2001. No one has ever lead the lead in their division in the season after they landed in the cellar. Tampa Bay has done both.

In the American League Central, the Chicago White Sox are in the lead, being 1 game ahead of the Minnesota Twins and 6 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers, while the normally dominate Cleveland Indians are in the cellar at 12 games out of the lead.

The AL West is not so weird, except for how far behind the Seattle Mariners are from the lead. They are 18 games behind the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, which is the farthest out of any team this season. Typically, this far into the season, no team has been this far behind. Since Seattle hired a new coach two weeks ago, they are slowly coming back, but no team has ever come back from 13 or more games back this late in the season to win even the Wild Card.

Speaking of the Wild Card Race, I know it's still a wee bit early to be talking about it, but the AL Wild Card Race is just as tight as the divisional races. Boston is leading that pack, ahead of Minnesota by 2.5 games, and ahead of the Oakland Athletics by 3.5 games. Again, it is suprising to not see Cleveland in the mix near the top. They are, as of last night at midnight, 15 games behind the Red Sox, and only ahead of the Seattle Mariners as far as record is concerned.

Looking at the National League, the East is just as strange, though not to the same magnitude. The Philadelphia Phillies are leading the pack, with the Florida Marlins 3.5 games behind them. The Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets are both under .500 for the first time since 1990, and they are 5.5 and 7 games back of the Phillies, respectively. The Washington (D.C.) Nationals are 14.5 games back, which isn't really all that surprising.

Going over to the Central, the Chicago Cubs are leading that division, with 3.5 games seperating them from the St. Louis Cardinals. The normally dominate Cincinnati Reds and Houstan Astros are fighting each other to stay out of the cellar in that division, being 11.5 and 12 games back, respectively. This is the first season in over 60 years where both Chicago teams are leading their respective divisions this late int he season.

Now on to the NL West, where my team -- the Arizona Diamondbacks -- is located, we see a very weird phenomena. As of last night at midnight, there is no team in the NL West that is at or above .500, with Arizona leading the pack at 1 game below .500 and 0.5 game ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. There have only been three other cases since 1900 in which there are no teams in a division at least at .500 this late in the season, where this makes the 4th case.

As far as the Wild-Card in the NL, this is the first time we have seen a West team not being contendors in that particular race this century. At this point in time, it is a race between two Central teams (St. Louis and Milwaukee; first and second, respectively) and an East team (Florida, Third). Milwaukee is 1 game behind St. Louis, while Florida is 4 games back. We don't see an NL West team until the fifth team back, tied with the Mets at 6 games back.

We are, right now, a week back of the All-Star break. Usually, things get turned around after the break, so we'll see how things look from the 18th onwards. Because, the way things look right now, the leads are to close to call. Just look what happened in the NL East last season, with Philli winning the division, coming back from 11 games back.

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