The AL East: Your Nose Runs and Your Feet Smell

If you had the AL East this way on your tout sheet to start the season, no one would have even sniffled:

Toronto
Yankees
Baltimore
Tampa Bay
Boston

With 10 games yet to play, your basement dweller has, in real life, clinched a Wild Card berth and is the leading candidate for the best overall record. Your pick for division king has clinched a losing season and lags 12 games behind .500. Indeed, like the man whose nose runs and feet smell , you've got it upside-down.

We all wondered (or fantasized) about the Blue Jays, who cobbled together high-profile parts from failed organizations to create an intriguing roster. Instead, the imports have scuffled either with injury or ineffectiveness or both, leaving Ontarians with a lineup that doesn't get on base and a pitching staff with a 4.65 ERA.

Other than the Jays, the rest of the division is at scraapping furiously for a Wild Card. Tampa Bay, despite its 18-25 August and September, leads the pack. They host Baltimore and visit New York and Toronto in their final 10 games, almost certainly securing a spot with six wins.

For the Orioles, three games short of the Rays, the four meetings in Tampa are critical. Failing to win at least three leaves them dependent on others to take down Tampa and Texas while they exploit last-place Toronto and coasting Boston.

Oh so improbably, the Yankees cling to contention's edge, even as Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte prepare for life after baseball, and the Disabled List hogs the services of Mark Teixeira and Derek Jeter. Losers of nine of their last 14, the Bombers have been outscored this year and have auditioned 18 shortstops and 19 third basemen. While the rest of the division engages in internecine warfare, New York can feast on San Francisco and Houston sandwiched around a set with the Rays. Four out in the loss column and trailing four teams for a play-in berth, they probably need to steal seven wins in the last nine to have any hope. 

Texas, Cleveland and Kansas City figure into this morass as well. The Rangers, reprising their 2012 role as late season face-planters (they're 4-13 in September), run into hard-charging KC on the road, then host the minor-league Astros and the enigmatic Angels to end the season. The Royals head home for the punchless Mariners and the feckless White Sox. They need at least seven of ten but might have the least resistance of all the contenders to deal with.

Then there is the Tribe, a mere half a game out of the Wild Card after an 11-6 September, but let's face it, they're Cleveland. They're 83-70, they're pounding the ball, their final three opponents (Astros, White Sox and Twins) are a combined 105 games under .500, but . . . they're Cleveland. By all rights they should be favored to nab one of the Wild Card slots. But, as may have been previously noted, Cleveland.

For the record, going into games of Sept. 20, Baseball Prospectus rates Tampa a seven-in-ten favorite to reach the play-in, while Texas is a two-to-one favorite. That means there is a 54% chance that one of them will relinquish their lead, and The Indians are best positioned to accept it. Cleveland is a 50-50 proposition while the Orioles, Royals and Yankees are all rated less than one-in-ten longshots, with New York a one-in-a-100 fantasy. These projections are based on the current roster of each team, their opponents and their current position in the Wild Card puzzle.

Besides determining the winner of the NL Central, it's the only intrigue left in the last two weeks. But from Dallas to the Bronx and from St. Pete to Cleveland, every pitch, every out, every run is magnified, and that's intrigue at the James Bond level.