The AL West was considered one of the best divisions in all of baseball last season, and it was only supposed get better this year.  The Rangers were going to regress slightly, the Angels had gone out and added former MVP Josh Hamilton, the Mariners added a whole lot of power to their line up and the Athletics won the division last season.  Now that the month of April is over, this is how the standings look:

Texas: 17-9
Oakland: 16-12
Seattle: 12-17
Los Angeles: 9-17
Houston: 8-19

Not quite the best division in baseball after one month, but still a good start.  The Rangers and Athletics have gotten off to hot starts while the Angels and Astros have, well… tanked.  The Mariners have not gotten off to a fantastic start, but have shown flashes of power that could make them contenders, but how did they all get where they are?

Houston Astros

After shocking the world on national television by beating the Rangers and ace Matt Harrison on opening day, the Astros have been pretty much what everyone thought they would be.  They have a lot of good young talent in the forms of Jose Altuve, Chris Carter and ace of the staff Bud Norris, but the team still has a lot of learning to do under Manager Bo Porter.

What makes the eight wins even worse is that half of the wins are against one team, the Mariners.  I’m not sure if that says more about how bad the Astros are or more about how much better the Mariners could be if they could just beat the Astros.  Either way, eight wins in the first month is a horrible start to the season.

Los Angeles Angels

If eight wins is bad for a team like the Astros that everyone expected to lose, nine wins for a team like the Angels, who were preseason World Series contenders, is disastrous.  It is hard to decide where to begin when looking at this team and trying to figure out what went wrong.  They spent most of their money in the offseason on one offensive player, the aforementioned Hamilton, when the biggest weakness was pitching.  Then, you have the fact that the biggest piece they added to their bullpen, Ryan Madson, has yet to throw a pitch in a game.

Those two issues don’t add up to a nine win first month of the season alone, though.  They also failed to add any above average arms to the starting rotation in the offseason, which has been magnified by the loss of Jered Weaver to the DL after he fractured his left elbow.  Slow starts by Hamilton, Albert Pujols and Mike Trout resulted in the Angels being dead in the middle of the pack in runs scored.  The lower-than-expected run production is truly magnified by the fact that the only team with a worse team ERA is the Houston Astros.

Seattle Mariners

As mentioned above, the M’s have lost four games to the Astros.  That hurt them a lot in the month of April.  If they had won just two of those four games against the Astros, they would have been just one game under .500. But, even with those losses, the M’s seem to be on the right track.

Hisashi Iwakuma was nearly lights out last season after they moved him to the rotation from the bullpen, and he has carried that over into this season.  He is currently leading the pitching staff with a 1.67 ERA and a 2-1 record.  Iwakuma has created the one-two punch with Felix Hernandez that the M’s have been looking for. 

With Iwakuma giving some much needed help to the rotation, the M’s focused on offense in the offseason. The biggest addition has worked out perfectly as Michael Morse is tied for second in the league with nine home runs.  If other offensive additions Kendrys Morales and Raul Ibanez start to hit to their potential, and last season’s stars Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager match last season’s production, the M’s could very well make the AL West a three team race.

Oakland Athletics

The A’s have had an up and down ride so far this season.  After dropping the first two games of the season, they went on a nine game winning streak.  In the last game of the streak Yoenis Cespedes went down with a hand injury, and the next 14 games the A’s went 4-10, with three of those wins being against the Astros.  They then finished off the month right with a three game winning streak.

Even as good as the month was, it could have been even better if starting pitchers Brett Anderson and Jarrod Parker didn’t start out in such a slump.  Seth Smith and key new addition Jed Lowrie started off the season red hot, but neither was hotter than third baseman Josh Donaldson who closed out the month winning player of the week honors in the last week of April.  With more consistent pitching, the A’s could easily be the top team in the division.

Texas Rangers

The Texas Rangers started off the season red hot.  After a loss to the Astros on opening day, the Rangers have been nearly unstoppable.  They won the next three straight, and they went on to win or split every single series in the month.  If that’s not winning baseball, then I don’t know what is.

Winning series is winning baseball, and the way they have been winning series is with expert pitching.  Led by Yu Darvish and the first near perfect game of the year, the pitching staff is third in the league in ERA and have allowed the second fewest runs of the year. 

So even with the dip in offensive production after the loss of stars like Hamilton and Texas all-time hits leader Michael Young, the Rangers are still looking like they could be the team to represent the AL in the World Series.