If the season ended today then three teams from the American League East would have earned themselves a playoff berth. The Baltimore Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, and the New York Yankees would each be in with one of them taking the division and the other two earning the two wild-card spots. Before the season began the Orioles staff writers and myself at Baltimore Sports and Life, led by Orioles analyst Jeff Long, gave our predictions on how the playoff picture would shake out and not a single one of us predicted three teams from the AL East would make the playoffs together.

The Tampa Bay Rays were predicted to win the division overall, with the Toronto Blue Jays the only other team to get a vote to take the division, and then the wild card was a toss-up between the Orioles or Blue Jays. Needless to say, not a single one of us thought the Yankees or Red Sox would be at the top with the Orioles just as we didn’t think the Rays and Blue Jays would be struggling as much as they have been.

Even though we’re barely 20 percent into the 2013 season it’s not difficult to imagine the division becoming a brutal fight to the end with no team being able to mash a bunch of buttons together in the correct sequence to hear “FATALITY” ring out across the ball park PA system.

Can we expect this to remain a three team race all season long, will it expand to four, or will it eventually become a two team race by August?

Obviously that’s a difficult question to answer because we just haven’t seen enough games played to say anything substantial about the standings or the teams, but let’s go ahead and take a look at what we do know about each team so far.

Before we get to what we know about each team so far let me tell you what we’ll be looking at and why. For each team’s offense we will take a look at their BB, K, and HR rates. For each team’s pitching staff we will take a look at BB and K rates. The reason is because these are the statistics that have a tendency to stabilize, on an individual player level, the fastest (usually between 70 and 120 PA for hitters and 70 and 170 TBF for pitchers).

New York Yankees

The Yankees are a team on the downslope of their dominance, with the way their roster is constructed around aging and injury prone veterans, and the fact that they have won as many games as they have at this point in the season is a testament to how resourceful they can be. They have nine players on the disabled list that would be starting for them right now, most recently their breakout catcher Francisco Cervelli. Instead they have had to rely on players such as Travis Hafner, Lyle Overbay, and Vernon Wells and somehow the three of them have outperformed all expectations.

Those players being used to temporarily replace the production of guys like Mark Teixeira, Derek Jeter, and Curtis Granderson have been outperforming even the most optimistic projections for them to help compliment a Yankees pitching staff that is their true strength. How long those players continue to play like they have been is anybody’s guess but it may not matter since Teixeira and Granderson are due back fairly soon.

Hitting	Statistic	Statistic	Pitching
7.9 %	BB Rate	BB Rate	6.6 %
17.8 %	K Rate	K Rate	21.7 %
3.4 %	HR Rate	FIP	3.66

What do you get when you combine a pitching staff that has the third lowest walk rate and ninth highest strikeout rate with an offense that is largely middle of the road? Apparently you get the Yankees and that’s really been the secret to their success. Barring any major injuries to their pitching staff and with the impending healthy returns of Granderson, Teixeira, and Kevin Youkilis their offense will most likely improve.

VERDICT: It appears that the Yankees may actually be for real at the moment and they aren’t even at top speed just yet. It starts and ends with their pitching staff though, so any major injury there could devastate their season and take them out of the race.

Boston Red Sox

Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington and company are laughing at all of us who doubted them right now. Before the season began many blew off their attempt at making a serious playoff run with the signings of players such as Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli and his bum hip, Jonny Gomes, Stephen Drew, and even Ryan Dempster. Every single one of these players are aging or incredibly fragile and some believed this was merely a transitional period for the organization as they waited for their prospects to develop.

They sure are showing how much any of us sports analysts know as they have gone on to score the fourth most runs in baseball with a unique blend of patience and extra-base hits, as they lead all of baseball in doubles with 82 and are tied with the Texas Rangers for the most triples at 10. The fact is that they routinely have men in scoring position and are constantly putting pressure on the opposing pitching staff as a result.

As if having one of the more efficient offenses in baseball right now weren’t enough they have coupled that with one of the more dominant pitching staffs in the American League. Even though they are walking 3.71 batting per game this season they are striking out 9.69 a game, second most in baseball, and are getting whiffs 9.7% of the time, which is eighth highest in baseball.

Hitting	Statistic	Statistic	Pitching
9.7 %	BB Rate	BB Rate	9.8 %
21.9 %	K Rate	K Rate	25.5 %
2.7 %	HR Rate	FIP	3.52

There is some cause for concern though as they are just 4-7 in the month of May and their offensive performance has dipped across the board. They are batting just .259/.333/.430 so far but the most alarming drop is in their BABIP, which isn’t surprising, where they had a .339 BABIP in April they have just a .293 BABIP in May so far (league average BABIP is .294 currently). Their pitching staff has also had a slight decline in performance as well going from a 3.61 FIP in April to a 4.13 FIP in May.

VERDICT:  Even if their May performance overall remains largely the same through the rest of the season they would still end up being a competitive team, Don’t be surprised to see them get hot again at some point and remain in the hunt for the AL East division title or a wild card berth.

Baltimore Orioles

The highlight of the Orioles offseason was re-signing left fielder Nate McLouth to a one year deal. That move has turned out to be a smart one as McLouth is currently second in baseball with 11 stolen bases, has scored 28 runs in the 33 games he has played, and is batting .286/.375/.437 with a .356 wOBA. There were signs that he was coming back around to his All-Star level performance late last season with the team but there were still concerns it was just a small sample size not to be taken seriously.

As with everything Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette have done over the last year and a half or so together, they have once again proven everyone wrong by making a calculated decision over a flashy one.

This team has scored the most runs in baseball and have that middle of the order power bat that we all thought they needed to go out and get in free agency with Chris Davis, who happens to be second in baseball with 11 home runs and is rocking a .313/.405/.664 batting line with some decent defense at first base.

Hitting	Statistic	Statistic	Pitching
8.0 %	BB Rate	BB Rate	9.0 %
16.9 %	K Rate	K Rate	17.8 %
3.1 %	HR Rate	FIP	4.41

Overall, the offense has drastically improved from last season but they still have some question marks at DH and especially second base. The fact that they have been able to produce the kind of offensive numbers they have with those two glaring weaknesses on the team is a testament to how well managed they are by Showalter and how determined they are to produce and lift each other up.

As of now, the biggest issue the team will have to address is their starting rotation. The bullpen struggled during the first two weeks of the season but has since become nearly as dominant as they were last season, but the rotation hasn’t been nearly as good this season as they were last and that will become an issue as the season progresses.

Jason Hammel is sporting a 4.93/4.75 ERA/FIP line, a 3.55 B/9 rate, and has had trouble with consistency from one start to the next while Miguel Gonzalez hasn’t fared much better with an ERA/FIP line of 4.58/5.32 and a 3.57 BB/9 rate. Wei-Yin Chen has been their most consistent starter as he’s currently 17^th in ERA (3.04) and 14^th in WAR (1.2) among qualified American League starters, but he left his most recent start with either an oblique strain or a cramp. Either way it could involve a stint on the disabled list according to Orioles beat reporter Britt Ghiroli.

Even though Chris Tillman has been improving with each successive start there is still a clear shortage of quality starters, at the moment, between disappointing performances from Jason Hammel and Miguel Gonzalez. They do have some additional options in Triple-A with Jair Jurrjens who has an opt-out clause in his contract for June 15^th and Zach Britton and Steve Johnson could also find themselves back in the rotation.

Verdict: This is a team that knows how to compete and no one should expect them to fall out of the race, early at least, but an acquisition of additional starting pitching depth and a second baseman should be priorities for the organization as we inch closer to the All-Star break and the trading deadline. Chase Utley could be a target since he becomes a free agent at the end of this season and guys like Tim Stauffer and Ubaldo Jimenez could be targets of the team depending on cost.

They may be able to hang in there and even nab a wild-card if the offense continues to produce the way it has been but starting pitching will be what holds them back if the issues aren’t resolved or addressed in some way.