Centrals hold key to wild card races

CHICAGO — The yin and yang of baseball reside in the Central divisions.

The National League Central has four teams over .500 and battling for first place. The American League Central has four teams under .500 and was led entering Tuesday by an Indians club only two games over .500.

The AL Central had a combined run differential of minus-172, compared with plus-81 for the NL Central.

The bottom line?

One division rules, while the other stinks.

The disparity couldn’t be more obvious after the first two months, and the fact they’re playing each other this season in interleague play makes it only more glaring.

The Central imbalance likely will affect the wild-card races, with NL Central contenders facing the Tigers, Royals and White Sox while NL East contenders face the Yankees and Red Sox, the two best teams in the majors.

Former Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel envisioned such a scenario when he voted “no” on interleague play on a union questionnaire after the 1996 season. Trachsel was obviously in the minority, and interleague play was implemented in 1997.

But he continued to rail against the inherent unfairness of pitting teams from one solid division against one underachieving division.

“I think it’s detracting from the World Series,” Trachsel said in June 1997 before the inaugural CubsWhite Sox interleague game. “And let’s say the American League Central happens to be a weak division and the AL East is a strong division. Then it’s a disadvantage to some [NL] teams that are fighting for a wild card.”

It has happened before, and it’s happening again.

Of course, no one knew before this season started that the NL Central would be as strong as it has been.

The Brewers were in a rebuilding phase, in spite of their competitive 2017 season. When I asked Manager Craig Counsell in late April at Wrigley Field how the Brewers had managed to fast-forward their rebuild, he smiled and said, “I wish it was going faster.”

But now the Brewers are leading the NL Central by 4½ games, thanks to a dominant bullpen and a lineup that immediately improved with the additions of Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich.

The Pirates shed two veterans in starting pitcher Gerrit Cole and outfielder Andrew McCutchen, and everyone assumed they were starting a rebuild as well. But they have surprised the experts and even managed to get under the skin of the Cubs, still considered the team to beat in the division.

Is the NL Central better than anyone expected?

“A little bit,” Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant said. “The Pirates are hanging in there. They’re always a tough team. They play us tough. And obviously we see the Brewers and the Cardinals. Yeah, it seems to be shaping out a little bit different than people thought.

“But all the more fun. More competition, more competitive baseball … it makes it more interesting. Certainly it would be nice for us to be the best team in the division and separate ourselves. But I guess we’re making it a little more interesting so far.”

In the AL Central, the heavily favored Indians are playing sub.500 ball against teams outside their division. The biggest issue is a bullpen that went from one of the best to one of the worst in one offseason.

But they still figure to run away from the pack. Recall that last year the Indians were 31-31 on June 15 but went 71-29 the rest of the way — a .710 winning percentage — to breeze to the AL Central title.

They had played only 16 games against division rivals heading into Tuesday night’s game against the White Sox, going 11-5 after Monday’s victory. That means they’ll probably feast on a diet of the Sox, Tigers and Royals for the final four months.

The Sox are in the early phase of their rebuild, and losses such as Monday’s error-filled collapse make it appear they’re even further away than their fans expected in Year 2.

But General Manager Rick Hahn recently said the major league team’s failures won’t deter them from the process of developing talent, which is the key to any rebuild, assuming they’ve collected talented prospects to begin with.

“From a big-picture standpoint, nothing that has happened up here has in any way slowed our progress as an organization or derailed in any way where we’re headed,” Hahn said.

By the time the rebuild clicks, perhaps the Indians will be on the downside and the AL Central could be one of the stronger divisions.

As the four-team NL Central race suggests, the only certainty in baseball is nothing lasts forever.