This has been an exciting year of baseball thus far, and it’ll even get better during the second half playoff push.  The Midsummer Classic marks the halfway point in the season and now the contenders will outshine the pretenders.  Here’s a look at a few contending teams that will struggle after the All Star Break.

The NL West has become the worst division in baseball.  The Arizona Diamondbacks currently sit in first place, a game and a half above the .500 Los Angeles Dodgers.   The last place San Francisco Giants are only six and a half back despite their struggles this year.  The second half should be interesting for this division.  The Diamondbacks aren’t a complete team and have areas where improvement is needed, especially the starting pitching.  They have Paul Goldschmidt who has been great, but he’s only one player and the pitching will struggle.  The Dodgers on the other hand, have been on a hot streak as of late, thanks to phenom Yasiel Puig.   LA has a stacked roster and is just now playing the way they were expected to.  The DBacks will struggle after the break, and due to the fact that they have never shown dominance this season, the NL West is an open division.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been one of the top teams in baseball so far this season and usually they have a second half collapse, but don’t expect that this year.  They’re in the tough NL Central where it’s a three team race between the first place St. Louis Cardinals, second place Pirates, and third place Cincinnati Reds.  Of these three teams the Reds may struggle more than the other two.  The Pirates have a strong rotation and some clutch hitters, the Cardinals have an amazing rotation that includes Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter and the young rookie Shelby Miller, not to mention some of the best hitters in the game.  The Reds are a solid team as well, but are five games back and it will be harder for them to catch up and keep pace with the Cardinals. 

The Cleveland Indians have been a surprise this season as they are only two and a half games out of first place in the AL Central.  The Detroit Tigers, as expected, are on top, but the Indians have given them a run for their money thus far.  Expect that to change after the break.  The Tigers have an impressive roster as always and will run away with the second half because of the limited threats in the division.  Always hard to bet against a lineup that includes a triple crown winner in Miguel Cabrera.  The Indians have struggled a bit lately as they are 4-6 in their last 10 games while the Tigers are 7-3.  Cleveland won’t be able to keep up with the always tough second half Tigers. 

There are many close divisions right now in baseball and some will remain that way til the very end, for example the AL East and West, but others won’t.  The All Star Break gives the players a chance to rest up before the big playoff run, and this year we’ll be able to see which surprise teams are there to stay and which ones have been the pretenders.