Whoa, we're halfway there!

Most MLB teams are halfway through their 162 schedule this week, so I thought it was an appropriate time to reflect upon my preseason predictions and take a look at how the second half of the season might play out.

AL EAST:
Rank-Team-(Record)-(Predicted finish)
1. Boston Red Sox (50-33) - (1)
2. Tampa Bay Rays (48-32) - (4)
3. NY Yankees (44-37) - (2)
4. Baltimore Orioles (41-38) - (5)
5. Toronto Blue Jays (39-43) - (3)

The important thing here is that this is still the Red Sox' division to lose. Baltimore and Toronto pose no threat. The Yankees pitching is in shambles due to the ineffectiveness and injuries to Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Chien-Ming Wang. They're only five games back and in good shape if they make a run, but I can't take a team throwing Darrell Rasner, Dan Giese and Sidney Ponson all out to the mound in the same week seriously. But hello Tampa Bay! If you are not sitting, please do so now - do you realize that the Tampa Bay Rays are on pace to win 96-98 games? No, seriously. Do I really think they can overtake the Red Sox and win the division? No. But clearly when I was pumping them up pre-season, I didn't give them enough credit by moving them up to just 4th place. This team has potential wild-card written all over it. Everyone in the sports world is going to hold their breath on that last thought until September before they say "ok... I KNEW this team was for real!" but I say a team 16 games over .500 halfway through the season should be taken seriously. I'd pencil them in for 90 wins and a spirited wild-card run that might fall just short. I should mention here that Tampa Bay's best record during its ten years in the league is 70-92.

AL CENTRAL:
1. Chicago White Sox (45-35) - (3)
2. Minnesota Twins (44-37) - (4)
3. Detroit Tigers (40-40) - (1)
4. Cleveland Indians (37-44) - (2)
5. Kansas City Royals (37-44) - (5)

It seems to me that my predicted order for this division has been affected in the first half of the season not by how well the White Sox and Twins have played, but the complete ineptitude of the Tigers and Indians. Special thanks to the Royals for keeping an even keel in last place. I'll give the White Sox credit, they're solid and they can pitch and hit. They will be there in the end. I don't trust the Twins - they just reeled off 10 straight wins and are liable to lose the next seven to fall back to .500 again. I can't figure out the Indians. If they get Carmona healthy to go with Sabathia and Lee, they could make a run, but they don't seem to have it in them. The Tigers, as expected, are weak in pitching and played like garbage for two months before pulling back to .500 today. I'm sticking to my guns though - the Tigers are still going to win this division. They have a team built to win a division and flame out in the first round of the playoffs, a la the 1990's Red Sox and 2000's Yankees. White Sox are definitely in the wild-card mix.

AL WEST:
1. Anahem Angels (48-33) - (2)
2. Oakland A's (44-36) - (3)
3. Texas Rangers (41-41) - (4)
4. Seattle Mariners (30-50) - (1)

Ok, I'd like to pause for a moment so that you can have a good chuckle at my expense.
.....
Done? Good. I'm not going to say I'm surprised that the Mariners aren't in first place, but it is nearly impossible for me to comprehend how bad they are. Moving on, the rest of the division plays out as expected. I guess I don't really have much to say here, so I'll just say one thing about Josh Hamilton: wow. You want a feel good story about a guy who was basically out of baseball with drug addictions who came back to beat the living daylights out of AL pitching, I've got one for you. Disney is all over that, except the drugs will be replaced with something like he gave up and his family talked him into giving it one more chance. Anyways, he's on pace for about 155 RBI. Absurd.

Predicted AL Playoff teams: Boston, Detroit, Seattle, Cleveland
Halfway prediction: Boston, Detroit, Anaheim... oh fine, I'll say it. Tampa Bay. By a game over the Yankees :-) Tampa Bay/Anaheim might be the least watched series in the history of baseball, and Tampa Bay might host the first playoff game that sells less than 15,000 tickets. Actually, a Boston/Tampa Bay ALCS matchup would likely mean the Red Sox have seven home games.

NL EAST:
1. Philadelphia Phillies (44-38) - (2)
2. Florida Marlins (41-39) - (5)
3. Atlanta Braves (40-42) - (3)
4. NY Mets (39-41) - (1)
5. Washington Nationals (32-50) - (4)

Sooooooo, about Santana putting the Mets over the top... well he's 7-7, the Mets are 39-41 and lost their manager and with the exception of one day Carlos Delgado lost his mojo and the whole thing reeks of mediocrity. By the way this is clearly the Phillies division to lose, and they're doing a pretty darn good job of trying to do just that. I'm a little confused by the Marlins because they didn't jack the payroll up over $100 million for a World Series title just to disband with a fire sale at the end of the year, so I'm not sure why they're in second place. This division is confusing and mediocre, moving on.

NL CENTRAL:
1. Chicago Cubs (49-32) - (1)
2. St. Louis Cardinals (46-36) - (5)
3. Milwaukee Brewers (44-36) - (2)
4. Pittsburgh Pirates (38-42) - (6)
5. Houston Astros (38-43) - (4)
6. Cincinnati Reds (37-45) - (3)

This division is playing out reasonably as expected. I'm still banking on a Cubs/Brewers first and second place finish. Pittsburgh, Houston and Cincy are mediocre to bad. Quite frankly I'm shocked the Cardinals are 46-36 given how I felt about them going into the season, but I guess anything is possible when Kyle Lohse is going to start the year 9-2 after not recording a winning season since 2003. I don't know, I give up. By the way, it hasn't been confirmed yet, but I suspect that Eric Gagne isn't really hurt, but rather doing serious jail time for the $10 million he robbed from the Brewers. Sorry, I had to make another joke about it.

NL WEST:
1. Arizona Diamondbacks (41-40) - (2)
2. LA Dodgers (38-42) - (3)
3. San Francisco Giants (35-46) - (5)
4. Colorado Rockies (32-49) - (1)
5. San Diego Padres (32-50) - (4)

Why did I bother predict the western divisions, you ask? Beats me, since only the Nationals and Padres stand in the way of my two western champs being the worst two teams in all of baseball. If I had written this a few days earlier or later, I'm sure I could have pulled that one off. By the way, this division is terrible. I don't really have anything more to say other than that Brandon Webb and Dan Haren should be enough to get the D-Backs out of this division. Randy Johnson wins the Brett Favre award for "Veteran player who hasn't retired yet because he has a huge milestone coming up (300 wins)."

Predicted NL playoff teams: NY Mets, Chicago, Colorado, Philly
Halfway predictions: Philly, Chicago, Arizona, Milwaukee

Ok, so the bad news is that at this point I think I'm only going to be right on half of my original eight playoff teams, which isn't really that good. The good news is that everything is set up for the Red Sox to repeat as World Series champs. Doesn't that sound good? But seriously, the entire NL is completely mediocre. The AL is bashing their brains out in interleague play again and the only teams that remotely worry me are the Cubs and Phillies, but really, not that much. In the AL, the Tigers and Yankees don't have October pitching, Tampa Bay probably isn't really good enough to win an ALCS matchup with the Sox, and the only team that looks pretty solid - the Angels - is a team the Red Sox have owned in the postseason. A much-hyped Red Sox-Cubs World Series (one that should have happened in 2003 but, alas, was not meant to be for either team) may very well be in the making - and I expect the Red Sox will win it.