At the official halfway mark of the season, 10 of the 11 remaining AL teams have a losing record, while the Texas Rangers are the lone squad with the only .500 record (42-42).
Tampa Bay (48-33), New York (48-35), White Sox (43-39), and Guardians (44-40) - those are the league's winners from the AL.
In the East, which is looking more and more likely to have another representative team in the World Series for the third straight year, the reigning AL Champion Toronto Blue Jays have a 39-45 record
While injuries have plagued them this season, they still have a losing record, and it's almost July.
And, of course, the disappointing Baltimore Orioles sit in fourth with a 39-46 record, and a bottom-feeder Red Sox team at 36-46 that not even the Tartan Army can spark inspiration into.
Over in the Central, the Minnesota Twins, who boast the third-worst earned run average in the entire league, sit at 40-45, just ahead of the 35-49 Detroit Tigers and the 35-50 Kansas City Royals, who are dead last in the AL after coming off a game in which they gave up 22 runs to the White Sox - the second-most scored in a single game in their history (29).
Then in the West, not a single team has a winning record.
With the Rangers sitting atop at .500, the reigning division champion Seattle Mariners are behind them at 42-43 with, surprisingly, the only positive run differential (+4) in the entire division. Meanwhile, the Houston Astros (42-44), Athletics (40-44), and Los Angeles Angels (36-49) each have run differentials worse than -30.
Stats
Of the bottom 15 teams in ERA, eight of them are in the AL, four of them make up the bottom five. And to make matters worse, the Yankees, White Sox, and Guardians are all in the bottom 10 of the league in total hits.
Adding on even more, the top four teams in the AL right now all have losing records to NL teams this season, while the Yankees are the only team in the AL to have a winning record (18-17) against teams with a .500 record or better.
If the season were to end right now, we would be seeing the first American League team in MLB history to clinch a Wild Card berth with a losing record since the playoff format changed in 1995.
The AL has two teams with at least 45 wins, the NL has five. The AL has zero teams with 50 wins, while the NL has two, one of them being the Milwaukee Brewers, who reached 50 wins in 79 games - the fastest in franchise history - and the other being the Los Angeles Dodgers, who boast the best record in the league at 54-30.
Unlike the AL, 10 of the 15 teams in the NL have a winning record against their league counterpart, and 10 have either a .500 record or better overall.
Even MLB's worst team in the Rockies are 13-11 this season against AL teams so far this season.
The Miami Marlins, who are 44-40 and third in the NL East, would be first in two of the AL's divisions. In that same NL East division, the 43-42 Washington Nationals would be first in the AL West and with the best run differential (+5).
The American League of losers - read why one half of MLB is a disaster.
When will it get better?
The brutal reality of it all is that it probably won't.
Toronto, for example, were 49-41 against teams with a .500 record or better during the regular season last year. Right now? They're 15-28. And yet, they're still above the Orioles and Red Sox, who have 17 and 18 wins, respectively, against the same.
And somehow, someway, the Blue Jays could still be sending their entire lineup to the All-Star Game if all of Canada stuffs the ballot boxes.
The Red Sox, following their walk-off win against the Yankees on June 28th, now have as many wins against teams .500 or better as the Rays do. Yet, they are so bad that they actually have a positive run differential (+5) compared to the Jays and Orioles, and are still sunk in dead last in the division.
There's no recovering from that.
As for the Tigers and Royals, no team in MLB history has ever made the playoffs after having just 35 wins at the halfway mark of their respective season. The Twins have given up 442 runs - the most of any team in the AL and the third-most in the entire league.
And the entirety of the AL West is a lost cause at this point.
Only the Yankees, Rays, Guardians, and Mariners have had win streaks of seven or more this season. The lowest? Orioles and Red Sox with three next to the New York Mets.
Recap
In the AL East, the Blue Jays are 13 games under .500 against teams with a .500 record or better, while the Orioles and Red Sox can't win more than three games in a row.
Then, in the Central, the Tigers and Royals have history against them, while the Twins' pitching staff is batting practice.
And in the West, not a single team has a winning record. Meanwhile, most of the National League continues to flourish.
There isn't a trend or uptick with the American League, and it might be wishful thinking that there will emerge some sort of secret contender by the time September rolls around.
And what's even worse, all of these teams in the American League, excluding the only four with a winning record, aren't poised to do anything at the MLB trade deadline in August that'll make any fans go, "Oh yeah, now they're contenders."
Buckle up, baseball fans, there's plenty of ugly left to go around in the American League.
