Come September, the Redsock-Yankee race might be the only thing going in the AL

The 2018 season has less than three months left - including unknown trades, injuries, hurricanes, riots, wars and other doodads arranged by the juju gods for their own amusement Who knows what will happen between now and November?  You can't predict baseball, Suzyn. 

But from the looks of things, we sure as hell can pick the AL post-season participants. As you see, Houston and Cleveland have all but wrapped up their sad, Triple A-level divisions, and the Joggyless Mariners sit 6.5 games up on their nearest competition for the last, Bud Selig one-game sudden death nightmare slot. 

Oakland hardly looks ready to heat up in the second half, and the next potential contender - the adorable tykes of Tampa - are already sniffing the trade deadline, hoping to load up for 2020. By mid-August, the battle for the AL East between New York and Boston may be the league's only relevant race. (In the NL, nine teams are chasing the post-season.) 

So in the AL, the rest of 2018 seems a battle to see whether Boston or the Yankees will get to avoid the one game shit show.

I'd like to step back for a moment and reflect upon this. Hasn't every rule change in the last 10 years been aimed as helping small market clubs compete against bigger cities? Everywhere, de-facto payroll caps exist - even on how much can be spent on 16-year-old international free agents. Sad, isn't it, that the hardest regulations imposed on this exploitative third-world system were to limit spending. The system was carefully rigged so billionaire owners could be cheap, and big money teams like the Yankees and Redsocks wouldn't lap the competition. 

And yet here we are: One true race in the AL, between Boston and New York. Take it away, and practically everything else has been settled. You can't predict baseball, Suzyn. But you sure can predict the folly of greed, no?