All-Star Weekend has come and gone, the second half is upon us! After a Winter of helter skelter moves and numerous teams cashing in on a fantastic free agent market the season itself has been just as exciting! We started the discussing the power and talent of the American League; the National League must not have liked all that talk as they have shown through the first half they have some serious title contenders as well.
In no particular order the four teams that were talked about the most were the Wichita Black Lightning, Trenton Generals, Kansas City Black and Blue Brachiosaurus and, as always, the Salem Witch Doctors. These four teams were talked up as the Class of the League and top title contenders.
Two of those teams, Salem (62-31) and Trenton (60-33), have played fantastic ball all season, positioning themselves in the early 1 and 2 spots respectively. Wichita (54-39) has been good but not great and has played rather inconstantly, outside of future Hall of Fame starter Oscar Baumann none of the starters have found their groove yet. Chili Stocker started the year strong but has been very inconsistent in his last 10 starts. All three of these teams seem to be in good position to make the Playoffs this year barring some unforeseen disaster.
Kansas City has been non-existent and is absolutely the biggest surprise of the first half. The team looked like a lock for 100 wins in Spring Training but has struggled to stay above .500 and is 1-4 against division rival Wichita. Currently the team sits in third place in the AL East behind the Hartford Yellow Jackets. Kansas City can not afford this lackluster performance any longer being 9 games out of the Wild Card currently, or they will not be seeing any postseason ball.
AL North rivals, Syracuse Tyrants (55-38) and New York Moose Knuckles (54-39) have been strong this year and sit in the Wild Card spots early. Syracuse has stayed strong despite being gutted of Cy Young pitchers Pat Politte and Oscar Baumann who led the team to the World Series last season.
In the South the Tampa Bay Waves (49-44) lead the way behind their big free agent signee, slugger Achilles Cohen who was left off the All-Star team but leads the league with 43 Home Runs. Tampa Bay looks strong but is only 3 games ahead of Iowa City I Wanna Score More (46-47).
When the Playoffs start I expect to see Trenton and Salem as the 1 and 2 seeds, with Wichita as the 3. Although it would not surprise me to see Wichita make a strong push for a 1st round bye. I expect to see Tampa Bay hold on to the South. If Cohen's bat goes cold then watch out, Iowa City will be ready to take the division if he should falter. I expect New York and Syracuse to hold onto the Wild Cards, but would be shocked not to see Kansas City make a push at some point. Hartford is a very young and talented team but they have no pitching and that is going to hurt them, they might be a spoiler, knocking someone out of the Playoffs, but I don't see them making a push for a spot themselves.
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