When we're talking about stats or the standings in baseball, the "first half" are the games played before the All-Star break -- regardless of whether a team has played 81 of its first 162 scheduled games. Most teams will reach that mark the the end of the holiday weekend, yet there's still two more weeks of play before we get to the break.
As such, being only halfway through the season even though it's been such a grind to get to this point, let's take a look at each playoff race and predict how fun (read: close) it'll be.
AL East -- Snoozefest. It's over.
AL Central -- We discussed this last week and the conclusion is the same. Though it might not be the best baseball, there's a great shot it'll be incredibly fun. The White Sox are in third place, but within striking range and have a boatload of head-to-heads remaining against both the Guardians and Twins.
AL West -- The Astros can yawn their way to another title here, so we'll yawn along with them. The fact that two division leaders have a lead of 13 1/2 games at the Fourth of July is ridiculous.
AL wild cards -- AL East teams hold all three spots right now, but the Guardians are only 1 1/2 games out. The White Sox are four out and, get this, the Rangers and Mariners are only five out. With the AL East being so tough -- even the Orioles aren't that far behind here at 7 1/2 back -- there could well be an opening for a lesser-looking roster. There's potential for major chaos here and that's fun.
NL East -- I'm counting the Phillies out now, but a Mets-Braves race is intriguing. It's currently a 3 1/2 game lead for the Mets, though it was once 10 1/2, which means the conventional wisdom here is "the Braves have all the momentum and are going to catch them." For me, what matters most is that the Mets have the lead. Those early-season wins count just as much as the Braves' June wins. It's going to be a fight, but the Mets have the advantage. Best of all, there are 15 games left between the two teams(!), starting a week from Monday.
