Down, but not Out (Yet)

September is here, which means we have less than one month of baseball left to play.  Rosters recently expanded from 25 to 40 players, teams are gearing up for the postseason and summer is slowly melting into autumn.

But where's the excitement, the rush, the pressure of packed stadiums and bright lights and electricity oozing into ballparks?  Look no further than the standings, where you'll find that outside of the AL Beast, every division leader has a cushion of at least 4.5 games, meaning the runner-ups have to gain more than a game a week in the standings to come back and capture the division crown.

Because there is no consolation prize this year.  The wild card races in both leagues have been anything but wild and are pretty much sewn up by the East division runner-ups in both leagues; either Boston or New York will take the AL, but my money's on the Yankees now that the Sox are getting healthier (who will be the more productive injury-plagued hot corner man down the stretch; Alex Rodriguez or Kevin Youkilis? A few years ago you would have been laughed out of your home state for asking this) and over in the Senior Circuit Atlanta has seemingly been in control since Opening Day.  That leaves the remaining contenders to duke it out with their division leaders, and anyone still hoping to make the postseason has some work to do. 

But with playoff berths still up for grabs, let's take a look at the remaining four divisions.

AL Central
Threat level-Low
Detroit holds a nice 5.5 game lead over the Indians and 6.5 game lead over the White Sox, both of whom have the talent to make a serious push.  Cleveland needs Ubaldo Jimenez to step up and be the ace they traded for, and Chicago desperately needs its underachieving trio of Alexis Rios, Adam Dunn and Jake Peavy to pull out of their season long funks before it's too late.  I could see the North Siders making a belated run, but unless Justin Verlander's arm falls off and Miguel Cabrera goes on another late-season drinking binge I don't see the mighty mighty Tigers coughing up their lead.

AL West
Threat Level-High
Try as they might, Texas just can not pull away from the Angels.  Their lead was eight games at one point recently, but Los Angeles got hot and rapidly closed the gap.  It seems like these teams have streaked all summer, with one getting hot when the other one slips and vice-versa.  While the Rangers have the superior offense that just regained Adrian Beltre, I like the Halos' big three of Dan Haren, Jered Weaver and Ervin Santana.  With the weather cooling down Arlington will become less of a hitter's haven and Anaheim will become more pitching friendly, opposing trends that benefit the Angels, plus Torii Hunter and Howard Kenrick have been coming around lately. Something tells me the Halos could pull this off, but I'm not going to write off the reigning AL champs just yet.

Brief sidenote-You can't blame LA skipper Mike Scoscia for throwing Haren and Weaver on short rest in a critical series with the Rangers, but both got shelled in Angel defeats.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, but if the Halos fall short that strategy could prove to be worthy of a winter's worth of second-guessing.

NL Central
Threat Level-None
Yogi Berra said it ain't over til it's over, but this one's pretty much over.  It seemed like Milwaukee didn't lose in August, and the Brew Crew bolstered their lead over St. Louis to 8.5 games, currently the largest in the six divisions.  With just under four weeks of baseball left, this hole is just too big for the Redbirds to climb out of (they would need to make up two games every week).  If Adam Wainwright hadn't missed the whole season this race would be much closer, but right now the only race in this division is the MVP one between Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder.  Fielder's power numbers are more impressive, but the Hebrew Hammer has had the better all-around season and deserves the trophy.

NL West
Threat Level-Medium

Can the Freak and his rotation mates
pitch San Fran back into October?

The Diamonbacks have quietly built a five game lead over the defending World Series champs thanks in part to superlative seasons from Ian Kennedy and Daniel Hudson (a lethal 1-2 top of the rotation punch), superstar-in-the-making Justin Upton and stud closer J.J. Putz.  Like the Angels, the Giants have the pitching to mount a comeback with Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Ryan Vogelsong, but the punchless offense wastes many of their solid performances. Far too many times one of them will go seven innings, give up a couple runs and end up getting slapped with a loss or no-decision for their efforts.  Carlos Beltran has underperformed thus far, but a big final month would provide a huge boost to a team that relies on him and Pablo Sandoval to do the heavy lifting with the lumber (Buster Posey, where are you?).  San Francisco isn't done yet, but I believe in the D-Backs to finish the job. This weekend's series between the two sparring partners marks a critical juncture in this duel.

So I don't see the Central leaders changing any time soon, but the West has yet to be won in both leagues.  The challengers from California have plenty of pitching, but will that be enough to overcome their substantial deficits in the battleground divisions?

Only time will tell.