A. L. Central Down to Two Team Race

There is still a lot of baseball left to be played, and teams have been known to get on a hot streak in September and make up a lot of ground, but it is fairly certain that the American League West is down to two teams. The Detroit Tigers go into the break with a 1.5 game lead over the Cleveland Indians, 8 over the Kansas City Royals, 12 over the Minnesota Twins and 14 over the Chicago White Sox.

The Royals, Twins and White Sox show no signs of competing for a playoff spot. The Royals are six games under .500 and all three teams are 3-7 in their last ten games. All three of these teams will probably trade some high priced talent at the trade deadline, if they can find some. The Sox can probably unload Adam Dunn onto a contender while the Royals might be able to get some young talent for James Shields. Trading Shields would not make the fans happy though after they gave up Wil Myers to get him.

The biggest question remaining in the Central Division is whether or not the Indians can stay with the mighty Tigers all the way to the end. The Tigers are loaded with talent with Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander on the mound and Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder in the middle of the order. The Indians can counter with Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez. A potential game changer in this could be Scott Kazmir if he continues to get better. If he gets back close to what he once was, look out for the Indians.

The Indians offense is led by Jason Kipnis, Michael Bourn, Mark Reynolds, Carlos Santana and Michael Brantley, all having good years at the plate. But they do not have a Cabrera or Fielder type bat anywhere in that lineup.

The Tigers and Indians have a big four game series coming up August 5-8. Mark your calendars for that one.