The cream always rises to the top; and unfortunately, Boston will still win out.

Boston's offense is going to be fine.  Their pitching should still be good enough to win the Division, maybe even the league.  I'm not sure the pitching's good enough to win the World Series though.

Would you rather have the Jays' starters or the Sox'?  Beckett, Dice-K and Lackey are all on the wrong side of 30 and seem to be real wild cards this year.

Nope.  I saw the Red Sox as a 93 win team at the start of the year, and the O's winning 90 as a pure hunch (they were probably good for 80-85 on talent).  The O's good start is offset by the losses of Matusz and Guthrie (the O's can afford some injuries to position players but not to starting pitchers).

The teams that my perspective has changed about (to some extent) are the Rays and the Jays.   There is now a  good chance that the Rays will not be in the race as of July (due to their start and Longoria's injury) and that will affect their approach at the deadline.  On the flip side, there is an increased possibility that the Jays will be in the race as of July and that will affect their approach at the deadline.  At the start of the season, I would have said that the chances of the Jays finishing ahead of the Rays were very small.  I don't think so now. 

"still win out"

Alert! Alert! Bankertuck has the Sawx finishing 156-6!

8-)

I predicted

BOS
NYY
TOR
TB
BAl

Right now I might flip the top two, with Yankees beating out the Redsox. I think I overestimated the pitching of the Redsox. Really whoever finishes on top between the two beasts of the east may come down to what kind of in season moves each team makes, if one of them acquires a #2 starter midway through the season it would be huge

I predicted New York to win the East by a couple of games over Boston and Tampa Bay by a couple of games over the Jays. I might be sold on switching the latter two if Tampa's woes continue for another week. As for Baltimore, everything depends upon whether Showalter loses the clubhouse before the end of the year. Given that I picked Baltimore last it is easy to see where my money lies...

Yes. Boston's starting pitching was already awful (ly overpaid and declining), and that will put undue pressure on a young Buchholz to perform, while Lester will be fine. Offense will be fine, but they look like a 90-92 win team, and I figured near 95-96 before. I think the Yanks will be fine. Burnett has been fine, and that bullpen is ridiculous.

More importantly, I think TB will be much worse off than we all thought. I think they will be lucky to win 85 games.

And a side note: after just 5% of the season, Toronto has the 3rd best run differential in the majors, while Boston is last.

I think Boston and NY will finish 1-2 (not sure which team will come out on top - I predicted Boston before the season began). I think Boston will be OK, but you don't want to dig yourself too deep a hole. There will be a lot of nervous Sox fans watching tonight's game against the Yanks. In the AL East, you don't want to lose more than about 66 games, and Boston has already dropped seven. To win 96 games, they will need to go 95-59 (.619) the rest of the way. By no means impossible, but a bit harder than it was a week ago.

I haven't given up on the Jays as a dark horse playoff contender in 2011, but I don't think they're quite there yet.

I picked NYY and still do. The writers seem to overhype Boston more each year since 2004. Before the season, I thought Boston would have a marginally better rotation overall than NY, with a weaker lineup and a much weaker bullpen. Buchholz' poor performance thus far has surprised me, admittedly, and I didn't expect as much from Beckett as he's shown thus far in the other direction, but I was entirely expecting Lackey and Matsuzaka to be problems.