As the sands run through another baseball season's hour glass, we are 10 days away from most teams having played half their games, and we're 20 days from the All-Star Game in San Diego, Calif. That means it is not too early to take a look at the standings in MLB and begin to handicap the battles for the last tickets into the playoffs: the Wild Card.
Four of baseball's six divisions have a leader who should take the division. Only the American League East and AL Central truly have battles for the division lead, with the Baltimore Orioles one game up over Boston and three in front of Toronto. In the AL Central, the Cleveland Indians have a .5-game lead over Kansas City and 4.5-game lead over the Tigers.
If the season were to end today, the Royals, at 38-31, and the Red Sox, at 39-29, would hold down those two AL Wild Card spots. While in the National League, the Miami Marlins, at 37-32, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, at 38-33, would be invited to the postseason.
