American League West: Predicting the Division Winner

Current Standings: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/

**NOTE** This was written on August 6th

WEST:
Texas              64-45
Oakland          54-54
LA Angels       55-56
Seattle             40-69

The AL East is shaping up for a photo finish. The AL West is not...

Texas (64-45) is enjoying almost everyhing that baseball has to offer. The wins, the screaming fans, the big hits, and the prospect of heading to the playoffs for the first time since 1999. So what's that one thing they don't have? Hmm...?

Oh, yes...divisional competition.

Oakland (54-54) sits at 9 1/2 games back of the Rangers. The real sad part is that they're 2nd in the division. The best race going on here is between the A's and the Angels (55-56), who sit at third in the West and 10 games back. Seattle (40-69) is a long way from anyone and nothing but a distant memory by now.

So I probably just wrapped up the story of the West right there, but what if Oakland has more to say?

Despite looking like a summer afterthought, the A's could call this a turnaround year, considering they finished 75-87 last year while looking up from dead last. They also delivered their fans a perfect game courtesy of pitcher Dallas Braden back on May 9th in Oakland.

So maybe things haven't been too bad as long as you are a fairly optomistic person, but that doesn't change the fact that the A's still must play series' against the Yankees (67-41), Rays (67-42), Twins (61-49), Angels (55-56), and Red Sox (63-47) just to name a few.

But the real make or break games are always against the teams north of you, in this case just the Rangers, who will be meeting Oakland on nine more occasions this year. And considering Texas lost Ian Kinsler to the DL and Josh Hamilton is suffering from knee tendonitis, the Rangers lineup took a hit that Oakland can take advantage of starting this weekend during a three game set with Texas in the Coliseum.

No matter what the standings look like, I hate to think of a race being completely over in the first week of August. So who knows, if Oakland plays up to their level of competition, they just might make things slightly uncomfortable for Texas in the final two months of the season.