It didn't take long to realize that the American League is the less impressive of the two in MLB this year. Five teams in the AL have a winning record over a quarter of the way through the season while eight of 15 National League teams stand above .500.
The AL East contains two of the AL's winningest squads (unfortunately for the struggling Boston Red Sox): the Tampa Bay Rays, the shocking best team in the league, and the New York Yankees. Fans have recently taking pleasure in dissecting New York's winning record and noting that its early success may not be all that it seems.
The Yankees are the only team in the league that hasn't beaten a team with a winning record at the time of their matchup. The two winning teams that New York has played, the Rays and Milwaukee Brewers, have swept them.
The Yankees' schedule has been quite easy to this point. They've played only AL teams with losing records, and bottom-of-the-barrel NL teams, such as the San Francisco Giants, New York Mets and Miami Marlins. The Yankees will play the Rays twice more in the first half, as well as the A's and Cleveand Guardians, but their schedule doesn't truly begin to get difficult until they play the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, sans-Rob Thomson Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves through the first two weeks of August.
Red Sox fans laughing as Yankees celebrate early success against insanely easy schedule
The ease of their matchups so far doesn't cancel out some of the excellent performances on New York's roster. To Red Sox fans' chagrin, Cam Schlittler has been incredible this season to the tune of a a 1.50 ERA, 0.864 WHIP, 1.82 FIP and 280 ERA+ over 66 innings. He leads MLB or the American League in each of those stats. Ben Rice, another Massachusetts native, has also put on an All-Star-caliber show so far, slashing .289/.388/.654 with a 1.042 OPS (subscription required). His slugging percentage and OPS lead the league. Of course, Aaron Judge is up to his usual slugging ways with 16 homers in 50 games.
In contrast to the Yankees, the Red Sox's schedule hasn't been such a walk in the park. Boston has played the Cardinals, Brewers, Braves and San Diego Padres already, and even took the series form Milwaukee. No one on the Red Sox is performing as well as Schlittler, Rice or Judge, but Jarren Duran is heating up, Ceddanne Rafaela has grown into an everyday contributor on both sides of the ball and Willson Contreras is on a career pace for home runs and he's been outstanding defensively.
The Red Sox's start to the season was ugly while the Yankees had plenty of success early. Boston has a lot of ground to cover to hopefully climb up the AL East, but an offensive surge coupled with New York's more difficult schedule in the second half could help it rise through the standings.
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