It seems like the baseball season is hitting its annual "wall." With around 50 games left in the 2010 campaign, it might be time to reinvigorate the summer pastime with an influx of drama. To be totally frank, though, there's good news and there's bad news.
The good news: as we head out of Sunday (August 8th), all but one division have a gap of 2½ games or less from first to second place. The bad news: no other team is less than 6½ games behind their respective division leaders. To be honest, I don't remember when there has been such a divide between first and third in all the divisions so soon in the proceedings. So what happened to all the other contenders?
Detroit Tigers
They were leading the AL Central by ½-game over Chicago back on July 10th. Then the bottom fell out. One injury bug after another finally led to Magglio Ordonez hitting the disabled list. But the pitching hasn't been fairing well. The team's given up 5 or more runs in 13 of 25 games since the All-Star Break. Detroit had been swept at Tampa and at Cleveland. The Tigers have not won a series since returning from their mini-vacation last month and are 6-20 since holding that division lead.
New York Mets
Within ½-game of Atlanta on June 27th, the Mets seemed to have their pitching staff on-track. Unfortunately, they were hurting for some offense. It started showing up in July. Mike Pelfrey and Jon Niese couldn't keep up their torrid pitching, and the Metropolitans lost ground steadily. Now they sit under .500 and nine out in the NL East after a 12-24 stretch.
Los Angeles Angels
New life was supplied to the Halos after winning a three-game series in Texas, keeping them 3½ back of the slipping Rangers after the first night in July. Two weeks later, the Angels were on the verge of sweeping Seattle, clawing back to a 3.5-game deficit. However, they couldn't finish the sweep, and that nick has led to quite a bit of bleeding.
Trips to New York and Texas didn't help, and a sweep at home to Boston started pushing the distance even further. By the time L.A. won their next home series with the Rangers on the first of August, they were just trying to stay above .500. A week later, they're 56-57, nine out of first.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers rode a 10-4 record into the All-Star Break, holding steady with Colorado and hovering two games behind San Diego. That streak included a sweep of the then-struggling Giants at Chavez Ravine. What a difference four days made. San Francisco, who won their last two heading into the Break, came out on fire (winning 15 of 19). Meanwhile, the Dodgers tumbled.
I realize not having Manny Ramirez is a plausible excuse, but that can't explain away two six-game losing streaks once play resumed on July 15th. Now L.A.'s in fourth-place in the NL West, seven back of the Padres (the Rockies have fallen 6.5 games off the pace).
Others
When considering all of these stories, there's only one fading team that I think will still have playoff aspirations: Boston. The Red Sox' infirmary has been filled up almost all season. They were dealt a big blow last week after Kevin Youkilis went down for the rest of the campaign. But if their pitching talent shines through, the Sox can make some noise before the end of September. Heck, even with all of that, they're seven back of the two best records in the league.
Other than Boston, however, there's no real reason to believe that any of these division races will come down to anything but a two-horse race (with Texas looking more like Secretariat every day). Even the wild card races are spreading out more. The Red Sox and Colorado are the only division middle-runners within four-and-a-half of the leaders (Tampa Bay and San Francisco).
So what does that mean? Basically, there are 11 teams for eight spots. Sounds really intriguing ... when it's September 15th, not August 9th. If you enjoy Alydar against Affirmed, then this run for home should treat you well. If you go three-wide down the backstretch, it appears to be "better luck next year."
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