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East divisions dominate the early Wild Card races

by Matt Smith

It’s always a little jarring to look at the MLB standings and find that the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox occupy the bottom two spots in the AL East division.

That’s the situation heading into Monday’s games. Both teams have played 41 games, essentially one quarter of the season, so they have plenty of time to recover but it’s clear that they have plenty of work to do over the months ahead.

Their plight looks all the more interesting when you play the ‘if the postseason started today …’ game.

The new postseason format creates the possibility that a division could produce three playoff teams.  The AL East was the only division in the junior circuit where that appeared to be a realistic scenario heading into the season and if the postseason started today then, sure enough, both of the Wild Cards would come from that division.

What you would never have guessed was that the division would produce three playoff teams and the Yankees and Red Sox would not be among them. Of course, you wouldn’t have guessed that because it’s very unlikely to happen and their records this early in the season do not change that. However, it’s still an entertaining prospect to consider.

The Baltimore Orioles would go straight through to the Division Series stage, joined by the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers, and the Rays and Blue Jays would battle it out in the sudden-death Wild Card ‘play in’ game. I’m sure the Rangers would be quite happy with that. The major media companies (ESPN, TBS, FOX etc) probably wouldn’t be quite so keen to see so many big market teams falling by the wayside.

Whatever the identities of the Wild Card teams, it is beginning to look like it could well be an AL East showdown.

The Detroit Tigers were supposed to run away with the AL Central and they currently sit third in the division behind the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians.  Detroit has the best roster on paper and in some ways that is evidenced by them being only three games behind the division leaders despite having played mediocre baseball for much of their first 41 games. Once they hit their stride, they should blast past their rivals and take the division by a decent distance, leaving the Indians and White Sox as unlikely Wild Card contenders despite looking like possible candidates right now.

Even taking the AL Central out of the Wild Card race, the odds coming into the season were still against the AL East claiming both spots because most predictions had the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels battling for the distinction of being the best team in the League (and probably in the Majors). However, while the Rangers are playing like World Series contenders yet again, the Angels are stuck in an early season malaise, epitomized by the paltry production coming from the bat of Albert Pujols.

The Angels could soon find a rich vein of form and counting them out this early would be foolish. Still, it’s perhaps not quite so daring to suggest that Angels might be looking for the Orioles and Blue Jays to suddenly slip away so that the slow starts suffered by the Yankees and Red Sox come into the equation and give L.A. a better shot at claiming one of the Wild Cards.

The East would also dominate the playoff landscape in the National League if the postseason started today.

The Braves lead the division and the Washington Nationals are 1.5 games back, leaving the Miami Marlins and New York Mets in a third-placed tie on 22-19 records. This would result in them first playing a tiebreaker game for the final Wild Card spot before heading onto another ‘lose and you go home’ game against the Nationals. The St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers would be left representing the other two divisions.

It’s time for the Central and West teams to stand up and start taking the fight to the East.

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