MLB: The AL East is the Beast

At the beginning of the season the American League looked like the best division in baseball. It looked like it would be a huge battle between the Tampa Bay Rays, the Boston Red Sox, and the New York Yankees. However, the beginning of the season didn’t go according to plan.

The New York Yankees started the season playing horrible baseball. The Red Sox were average at best. And the Rays were just plan horrible. But one team that came out of the gates playing great baseball was the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Blue Jays jumped out to a division lead and for a couple months they looked like they just might be this year’s Rays. But the Blue Jays cooled off just a little bit and that has been enough to drop them back to 4th place in the AL East. Sure the Blue Jays are still playing over .500 but the rest of the division has really picked it up. Yes, that includes all 3 teams that we thought would be great this year.

The Red Sox are a team to be reckoned with this year. That much is certain. They have the pitching and the hitting to win it all. The only question is whether they’ll be able to hold off the Yankees and even the Rays. Because the Yankees are showing signs of being a team that is so good it’s scary.

In fact, the Yankees have now won 7 straight games. Before this 7 games winning streak they looked like they might be in trouble. But this team has way too much talent to simply fade into oblivion. They will be at or near the top of the division by the end of the season (unless Girardi is even worse than I think).

And the Rays have also seemingly put it back together. They are playing great too. But I just don’t think they can duplicate what they did last year and I think the Red Sox and the Yankees have too much.

Only time will tell. But one thing that is certain right now is the fact that the AL East is a beast of a division. And, as we sit here in very early July, this division is finally living up to the hype.