The Major League Baseball Regular Season So Far

The Major League Baseball regular season has played enough games, around the mid-forties in number, for me to look at the standings and notice trends.  The division leaders right now, listed in order from the American League East-Central-West to the corresponding National League divisions, are the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs, and San Francisco Giants.  The cellar-dwellers, in the same order, are the Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins, Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, and San Diego Padres.  Minnesota, Atlanta, and Cincinnati are having truly horrendous seasons while the Cubs and Giants have put distance between themselves and their divisional challengers.  All of the other divisions are close, with Baltimore, Cleveland, defending World Series champion Kansas City, Texas, defending NL champs New York Mets, Philadelphia, and Miami having winning, competitive seasons.  The Marlins at this writing are 24-21, a marked turnaround so far from their dismal 72-90 season last year...they're in fourth place right now, but only 3.5 games from the lead.  The Rays, "my" other Florida team, are struggling at 21-23, just percentage points in last place but still solidly in the running...

It's hard to predict how things will wind up this year. An injury to a key player can devastate a team, and sometimes a team will go into prolonged hitting or pitching slumps...or the opposite can occur and one or more of them can suddenly surge in the standings.  I can't see a lot to interest me in baseball right now...maybe it's because I've seen in recent years my favorite teams cave in and go into those aforementioned slumps.  Will that happen again, or will either Miami or Tampa Bay (or both) break the pattern and finish as winners?