The tricky thing about Major League Baseball is that any team can go on a long winning streak at anytime. But with that being said, this works the other way around as well. A team can also lose game after game, and in turn, find themselves out of playoff positioning by the All Star break. And once again this year, there are some teams that are doing both.

At this time, most teams have played anywhere from 40 to 45 games. No, this is not enough to declare the playoff participants just yet, but everybody is getting a much better look at which teams are most capable of making a run at the World Series.

In the American League East, the Boston Red Sox have a 10.5 game lead on both the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees. As you can imagine, this is not making Yankees fans very happy. Bad starting pitching has had a lot to do with this early season let down. The question is, “Can this problem get fixed as the season moves on?”

In the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers are still surprising everyone. Although they have only won 3 of their last 10 games, they still have a record of 27-17; which is good enough for a 5.5 game lead over the second place Houston Astros.

There is still plenty of time for even the worst teams to make their way back into playoff contention. But now that the season is 25 percent complete, it is time for the cream of the crop to rise to the top!

Source: sports.yahoo.com (AP Photo/Morry Gash)