AL Wild Card Wild Cards

Also see: NL Wild Card Wild Cards

The temperature will surely cool down as August turns into September, but as usual, the baseball playoff races are beginning to heat up. Since a wild card team has advanced to the World Series in every year since 2002, this season's AL wild card winner could very easily be the benefactor of the American League victory in the All-Star Game.

Just like we did last week with the NL wild card race, today we'll examine the chase for the AL wild card and examine some possible wild cards each team has.

Boston Red Sox

(Lead AL wild card race)

Why they can win: Consistency

This 2008 Boston Red Sox team has no real glaring weakness. They rank in the top five in nearly every hitting statistic and have the best team batting average in all of baseball. Even trading away their best hitter in Manny Ramirez hasn't set this team back because new left fielder Jason Bay has hit .347 with 4 home runs in his 18 games with the Sox.

Boston remains equally as consistent when they are not up to bat, ranking sixth in the AL in ERA and tied for fifth in the league in fielding percentage. Jonathan Papelbon is third in the league in saves, Josh Beckett is fifth in strikeouts, and Daisuke Matsuzaka would be in the top five in ERA if he had enough innings pitched, and if Dice-K can stay healthy the remainder of the season, he will get enough to qualify.

Boston's depth has given them the ability to avoid prolonged losing streaks and allowed them to stay near the top of the standings all season long.

Wild card: Injuries

Boston has been banged up all season, and their situation certainly isn't improving. Josh Beckett skipped his last start with numbness in his ring and pinkie finger on his throwing hand. Tim Wakefield hasn't pitched since August 6th and could still be another week away from returning. Julio Lugo has been out since straining his quad on July 11th.

And it's not as if the injury bug has bitten this team only recently. Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Mike Timlin, Alex Cora, Sean Casey, Brandon Moss, Clay Buchholz, Daisuke Matsuzaka, David Ortiz, Bartolo Colon, Julio Lugo, and Tim Wakefield have all spent time on the DL this season.

Boston may have the talent the repeat as World Series champions. The question is whether or not that talent will be at Terry Francona's disposal when it matters most.

Chicago White Sox

(Lead AL Central; trail Boston by .5 game for AL wild card)

Why they can win: Pitching

Boston may have the best 1-2 punch in the American League with Beckett and Dice-K, but the White Sox have the most pitching depth. They already have four different starting pitchers with at least 10 wins. Their bullpen has no gaping holes, and is backed up by one of the top closers in baseball in Bobby Jenks.

Their solid pitching staff keeps them in every game they play in, and the White Sox' power at the plate is usually enough to put them over the top. Coming into this week, the South Siders have hit 34 more home runs than the second best team in the American League. That combination of pitching and power is usually the recipe for success in October.

Wild card: Manager

Ozzie Guillen is the definition of a wild card. You have no idea what he is going to say on any given day. Most of the time, his team responds favorably to his tirades, but eventually, his act is going to wear out. And look out when it does.

Everything Guillen says is already heavily scrutinized, and ESPN surely isn't going shy away from leading "SportsCenter" with his next bonehead comment. The White Sox players have sat by and watched Ozzie pull his foot out of his mouth countless times in the past few seasons, but when you skate on ice as thin as Guillen does, it's just a matter of time before the bottom falls out.

Team chemistry basically propelled the Rockies to the fall classic last year. Ozzie is always one thoughtless quote away from throwing all of his team's chemistry down the drain.

Minnesota Twins

(Trail Boston by 1 game for AL Wild Card; trail Chicago by .5 game in AL Central)

Why they can win: History

Most teams on this list have one real strong suit that they can go to in a pinch. They either have great pitching, great hitting, or a solid enough combination of both to win games. Not the Twins. They're not gonna blow you away under any circumstance.

Sure, the Twins are third in the AL in batting average, but they rank ninth in slugging percentage and 13th in home runs. It's basically a team of slap hitters.

Well, surely with all the singles the Twins accumulate, they must steal a lot of bases to manufacture runs, right? Wrong. The Twins rank just seventh in the American league in stolen bases and have been caught stealing more than every team except Tampa Bay, and the Rays have 50 more stolen bases to their credit.

The Twins' pitching staff is just as underwhelming as their lineup. They have just the seventh-best ERA in the league. They have only one pitcher who has struck out 100 batters (Scott Baker's 107 Ks is good for 23 in the American League).

So how does this team have 74 wins already? Because they are the Twins, that's how. This is the same Twins team that has made the postseason four of the last six seasons (only the Red Sox have been more times in that span, reaching the postseason five of the last six years). It's the same Twins team that overachieves every season, despite the fact that their roster is overhauled each offseason because they can't afford to keep their talented vets (see: Santana, Johan and Hunter, Torii). It's the same Twins team that catches fire like clockwork around this time every season.

And it's the same Twins team that has played the same brand of fundamentally sound baseball since Ron Gardenhire took over in 2002. They throw strikes, put the ball in play, sacrifice runners over, come up with clutch hits, and more often than not, have teams with double the payroll looking up at them in the standings when it's all said and done.

Wild card: Talent

Before I get all Larry Brown on you about this team playing the right way, allow me to point out that it doesn't really matter that they play the right way when they aren't playing it at a high level. I love the way the Twins play the game, but I can't in good conscience pick them to make the playoffs when I compare their roster side-by-side to the other two teams on this list.

Sure, history tells me that the Twins can get catch either of the Sox's because they seem to do it every year. But I've watched a lot of baseball in my life, and my gut tells me that this group simply isn't good enough to beat contending teams, even if I do like the way they play.