Wild opening half to the season has the Cubs and Rays of all teams, leading their respective leagues as baseball approaches the 70 game mark into this 2008 season.

SCOTT JACOBS

When you look at the standings right now they seemingly read backwards.

They don’t look right. They look extreme… ly odd? There’s no rhyme of reason to make sense of what has happened early on as we steamroll confusingly closer to Yankee Stadium, home of the All Star break.

Originally Yankee Stadium was the House that Ruth built and money tore down. Now it’s looking like the Stadium that the Yankees laid to rest by fading into further mediocrity.

The Yanks who, as we all know by now, but I’ll say it again just for sheer entertainment, have by far and away the highest payroll in baseball. Apparently though, 200 million dollars can’t even buy you a winning record. Adding injury to their insult are the shockingly good Tampa Bay Rays. They’re 12 games above .500 and a little blip in the Sun Sentinel joked that a Tampa Bay-Florida series would probably not garner the best of uh, ratings. But that matchup, as crazy as it sounds, is a hell of a lot more likely then say, a Detoit-Mets Fall Classic.

And that my friends and fellow world earthlings is nothing short of amazing.

Tampa Bay (35) and Florida (32) had a combined 67 wins going into tonight’s play. The Mets (29) and Detroit (24) came in at a rather baffling 53. Do the math and the Sunshine State is swinging a hot baseball stick.

But that’s not all. The Tigers, pre-season favorites by many to win the American League, have the same number of wins as the lowly Washington Nationals

The Oakland A’s, who dealt Dan Haren to Arizona and some other players as well, were supposed to be cellar dwellars in 2008. They’re five games above .500! The Mariners who bolstered their pitching staff, or so it seemed, with the acquisition of Erik Bedard after a strong and surprising 07 campaign are the only team in the resurgent AL West without at least a .500 record.

In fact, the only fight the stunningly pathetic M’s are putting up, is the one with Colorado, the reigning NL champs, who are already 16 games below .500. Those two teams currently stand 1-2 not in this week’s ESPN power rankings, but in this years’ loss column.

I really thought the Rocks were for real, and last year was no fluke. But they’re not doing much at all this year to back up my once confident case that they were not a one and done team. Not only is last year looking more like a “caught lightning in a bottle and ran all the way to the World Series” type of deal, but this year is absolutley destroying the hopes of a reinvigorated fan base who must feel like last October was 20 years ago.

Of course, misery loves company, and the Rockies picked the right division to be really pitiful. The NL West, by far and away baseball’s best overall division last year, boasting three teams with 0ver 88 wins, couldn’t have flipped more this season if they tried. We expected the Giants to be bad, and boring without Barry and they are. But 9 games below .500, as San Fran sits now, is good enough for third. The Padres, who lost to the Rocks in heartbreaking fashion in the play in playoff game last year, are even worse at 14 games below .500. The Dodgers are in second with a losing record, and having lost 8 of 10. But wait, there’s more. The division leading D’backs, who looked like baseball’s best team earlier in the year are freefalling dropping 8 of their last 10 as well. Add it up, and in the last 10 games, Arizona still has the same 3.5 game lead over LA as they did 10 games ago, when their fall from grace began.

The Cubs made the playoffs last year, and came into this year facing the prospect of 100 years without a title. They have the best record in the bigs at 38-21 and a nine game winning streak to boot. The Cardinals are the biggest surprise, sitting comfortably in second, with a record that would have them leading or tied for the division lead in the AL Central, NL East, and NL West. The Reds, this off-season’s chic pick to actually do good, are 28-31, the same mark as LA. They’re in fifth place. The commerical says it Pays to Discover. I say, it pays to be in the NL West or AL Central.

The AL Central has to be the biggest shock by far. Not only are the Tigers and Indians both under .500, but the division leading White Sox (it’s 2005 all over again!) just got threatened by their manager to get more offensive help or ELSE! Of course, no AL Central report would be complete without the Twins, who dealt Johan Santana, had no expectations whatsoever to be a factor this year, and are two games above .500.

So here’s the recap:

Division leaders:
AL: Rays, White Sox, Angels
NL: Phillies, Cubs, Diamondbacks

Division doormats:
AL: Yankees, Royals, Mariners
NL: Nationals, Pirates, Rockies

More crazy story lines:
The Marlins led the NL East almost the entire month of May until the Phillies took 2 of 3 in a series between the two and haven’t looked back yet.

The Rays are setting franchise marks almost every time they step on the field. And Baseball Prospectus saw it coming. Before the season there was an article on SI.com with statistics suggesting the Rays would be this year’s surprise team, winning, if I recall correctly 85 games. At the rate the Rays are going, 88 would almost be a disappointment now!

The Chicago Cubs entered June with baseball’s best record for the first time in uh, only a century. They swept a seven game home-stand for the first time since 1970. Maybe it’s time to start taking the old montage, “This is our year,” seriously. At least for now that is.

The Tigers, who some thought might score over 1000 runs this year have a ways to go. In fact, before they focus on an absolutely unreachable plateau, they may want to score more runs then their opposition. 26 runs in the red are the baby cats, who have been baseball’s saddest excuse for a title contender amongst the big money teams so far.

Stay tuned. With the Cup going to Detroit, and the NBA Finals over in no longer then two weeks, we’ve got baseball, baseball, baseball for a few months, and nothing else. So let parity reign, for sanity’s sake!

Popularity: 3% [?]