AL Midseason Report

With another AL midsummer victory in the book, its time to look ahead to the second half of the season. The Orioles have taken their inevitable fall from their perch atop the AL East and it looks as though the ever so familiar dogfight between the Yankees and Red Sox will once again produce the division champion. The Sox hold a 2.5 game edge over the Bronx Bombers and open the second half hosting their sworn rivals at Fenway Park. The Yankees got away with being a slightly better than .500 team in the first half because the Orioles couldn't close the deal in the division. The Baltimore pitching has not held up and the Orioles have suffered some tough injuries to catcher Javy Lopez and young hurler Erik Bedard. But a weak showing at Fenway this weekend and New York could find itself resigned to the Wild Card race. That being said, the Yanks could also take first place for the first significant time all-season. Neither of these teams will win the division with outstanding pitching - while Randy Johnson will need to come around for the Yanks to have any shot in the playoffs, Jason Giambi may be the offensive key that could propel this team to the division title. The steroid posterboy hit 5 homers in his last 6 games - either his body is finally readjusting to not being on steroids anymore or he's back on the juice. Mike Mussina has been good but nothing great and has struggled in the playoffs in the last two years and other than Moose, rookie Chien Ming-Wang has been the only consistent pitcher on the Yankee staff. I feel like I've seen this before - a Yankee pitching prospect who excells for the majority of the season but then falters down the stretch and in the playoffs (think Jose Contreras, Javier Vazquez - we'll see if Wang pans out). But the Yankees are in luck since Boston isn't exactly stacked with arms either. Matt Clement is going to slow down in the second half - Boston can't really be counting on a career #3 pitcher to be their ace - David Wells is past washed up, Bronson Arroyo and Tim Wakefield again are both not bad to round out a rotation - but one of these guys has to be your #3? Wade Miller has been a non-factor so far. And the Joker in the deck Curt Schilling , closer? I wouldn't count on this move being too successful seeing that Schilling is a guy who takes around 60 pitches just to get loose - not exactly someone you can have on call at the drop of a hat. All that being said, I'm going to stick with my preseason prediction of the Yankees taking the East. But whether or not they make the playoffs, they'll know within a month if they'll make any noise in the postseason. The Bombers face the Red Sox, Angels, Twins and White Sox all within the next month. In the first half, the Yankees couldn't beat the teams they should have like the Royals, Brewers and Devil Rays. In the second half they're going to have to make that up by beating teams that up to this point have been much better than they have. In their matchups against the tops teams in the AL the Yankees with Giambi coming alive can outslug the Red Sox and Angels. The true test will be the series against the White Sox and Twins. The last few years the Yanks have had the Twins' number often dispatching them in the first round of the playoffs. Johan Santana hasn't exactly been his dominant self this year but Carlos Silva is putting together another solid season in the Twin cities. Chicago has the 1-2 All-Star combo of Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland with Freddy Garcia a solid #3. Plug in a healthy El Duque in the playoffs or Contreras if need be and you've got arguably the strongest staff in the AL. A lot of people don't think the White Sox have what it takes to keep it together in the second half - I guess 28 games above .500 in the first half isn't good enough? But Ozzie Guillen and the Southsiders have proven that fundamental baseball can still prevail and since coming back to the team Frank Thomas has been the power boost this offense needs. The Big Hurt has 20 hits - 11 of them are home runs. I'm gonna say the White Sox finish 40 games above .500 which would make them winners of 101 games. A good midseason battle for the ChiSox next weekend with Boston in town for 4.
The Angels are going to run away with the AL West in the 2nd half. They've battled injuries throughout the first half and still hold a 5 game lead over second place Texas. Vlad Guerrero, Francisco Rodriguez both were out for weeks at a time but the LA Angels battled through. Also Anaheim has the best bullpen in the AL - possibly even baseball with Scott Shields, Brendan Donnelly and K-Rod. Make no mistake, Oakland is for real after starting out slow and will make a run at the Wild Card. But I still think the A's with their young squad are a year away from the playoffs. Billy Beane has proven once again he knows what he's doing and has assembled another potential contender in '05. I'm going to stick with the midseason predictions for division winners and the AL playoffs will play out as follows:

AL East - Yanks Central - White Sox West - Angels Wild Card - Twins

White Sox over Yanks Angels over Twins

White Sox over Angels