American League

The Baltimore Orioles have quietly played the second-best baseball in the entire league this year, despite losing Matt Wieters and Manny Machado to injury and Chris Davis to a suspension. Disclaimer: I was born and raised in the Baltimore are, so I am biased toward the team, but I think any objective fan could see the Orioles’ chances.

With these major offensive and defensive threats gone, Manager Buck Showalter and his staff added a few pieces and got lucky with a few more to fill those holes. Players like Steve Pearce, Delmon Young, and recently Alejandro De Aza have stepped up to the point that the Orioles have been a better team in terms of record since Wieters and Machado left.

In fact, the Orioles are, according to record, the second best team in all of baseball. At 92-60, they sit just three games behind the Los Angeles Angels for the top spot in the league.

The Orioles seem to have manufactured runs down the stretch, whether through home runs or base hits. They rank seventh in baseball with 669 runs driven in, third in slugging percentage (.424) and eighth in batting average (.258).

Since July 1, the Orioles have outscored opponents by 99 runs. This could be largely in part because of the home runs; the team has hit 199 of them this season, which are 26 more than anyone else in the league.

But don’t think that all the Orioles can do is score runs, because that’s not the case. Since the All-Star break, the pitching staff is ranked third in the league with a 2.86 ERA.

Not to mention, the Orioles bullpen ranks seventh in baseball in ERA. Add in Andrew Miller, and this team will be tough to beat late in games.

National League

Now, whoever is reading this will probably start up the conspiracy theory train, but the Washington Nationals may just be the best team in the entire NL. It’s a testament to how far these two teams have come since five years ago or so.

The Nationals have a well-known rotation that includes Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and Doug Fister. The pitching staff has put together the second-best ERA in all of baseball at 3.06, but it’s not just the rotation.

Every playoff team needs a solid bullpen to close down games late. The Nationals sit fourth in the league with a 2.95 bullpen ERA. They’ll be the best starting and relieving corps in all of the NL playoffs, and that could prove valuable down the road.

However, unlike the Orioles, much hasn’t been said about the job Manager Matt Williams has done with this offense. What was once a weakness on this team is turning into a powerful weapon.

Denard Span, batting .299 for the season, leads a Nationals offense that ranks ninth in the league in runs scored and sits 10th in slugging percentage. The runs are coming from different area as well, as Adam LaRoche leads in home runs, Ian Desmond in RBIs and Jayson Werth in OPS.

This team will go into the playoffs seeded No. 1 in the NL, but it doesn’t seem like the attention is on them. Instead, the favorites will be the Los Angeles Dodgers, which rank behind the Nationals in offense and pitching.