Oddities as of September 24th (primarily due to the dominance of the NL Central)

No, this isn't a post about Yogi Berra.  He was one of the game's all time greats, and his wit will be missed.

Oddities.  

1. The Kansas City Royals are currently the best team in the AL.  If they were in the NL Central, they would be in 4th place.  Realize this--that means they wouldn't even make it into the NL wild card game.
2. One of the top three teams in MLB through the regular season will be out of the playoffs after the initial NL wild card game.
3. The Yankees, who were not picked by many folks to make it this far, have a good grip on the AL 1st wild card.  
4. The Astros... have the 2nd AL wild card currently, but could easily be overcome by either the Twins (picked by almost nobody) and/or the Angels (who were expected to win the AL West... which is led by the Texas Rangers... who pretty much nobody picked).
5. The Mariners, a popular pick to make it to the World Series, are 5.5 games back in the race for the 2nd wild card.  They are not mathematically eliminated, but there's no way they will get close to winning.
6. The Nationals, an almost universally picked team to win the NL, are 10.5 games back in the race for the 2nd NL wild card.  They have played 151 games.  11 to go.  They are probably going to be mathematically eliminated today.
7. The Cubs, the Lovable Loser Cubs, are 89 - 63, have pretty good lock on the 2nd wild card spot.  The Giants, happily not heading for the playoffs (it is an even year, after all), are 9.5 games back in the wild card race.  It would take a historically brilliant collapse by the Cubs (or Pirates) and a historically tremendous run by the Giants to make alter this.  Not happening.  These Cubs are for real.
8. If the NL Central were a team, they would be in
1. 3rd in the AL East
2. 2nd in the AL Central
3. 2nd in the AL West
4. 2nd in the NL East
5. 4th in the NL Central (circular reasoning?)
6. 2nd in the NL West
9. Nobody sucks as bad as the Phillies.  They are probably going to get 100 L's for the year.  Still, they are a mere 28 games back of first place in their division.  The Brewers and Reds are 32 and 32.5 games back in theirs.  Of course, the Brewers and Reds are in the NL Central.  If they were in the NL East, they'd displace both the Braves and the Phillies.
10. These ten items are not in any special order--just the order in which I wrote them.  Also, my Cleveland Indians are in no special order, but doing better than most Cleveland fans expected them to be after seeing that Sports Illustrated put them on their cover.

So there you go.