What's Haf of $57 million?

So I listened to that Baseball Today thing. The consensus seems to be that the Central belongs to Detroit, and that the Wild Thing is Cleveland's to preserve. I'm not nearly ready to concede this point, but I will say that the first ten games after the break will be extremely important for the top half of the AL, and should serve to sort a lot of things out. The Yankees' entire season quite clearly rests on those games. If they remain 10-12 games out of the wild card after 100 games, it's over. They're simply not going to play 10 games better than anyone over the course of the last 60 games. The same goes for the A's and Twins, though their records are a little better so they have a little more leeway. My instinct tells me that not much will change between Cleveland and Detroit in those ten games. Cleveland has a much easier schedule, so it's likely that they'll even take back the lead for the time being. The Tribe has Kansas City and Chicago at home, followed by Texas on the road, while the Tigers see Seattle and Minnesota on the road before facing KC at home for three. Both the Mariners and Twins will be aggressively out to demonstrate their contender status, and I don't see the Tigers faring any better than .500 in those two series. It'd be a great time for Cleveland to slaughter three clubs that already have little to play for, and get the inside track for the rest of the year. We'll see.