My Two Cents: AL East Terrible This Year, But Rays Not Taking Advantage of It

TAMPA, Fla. — Since major-league baseball went to six divisions — three in each league — three-plus decades ago, the American League East has been the king of the hill. It's always been considered the game's best division.

But not this year. The AL East has gone from first to worst in 2025 — and it's not even close.

The New York Yankees, who are 27-19, are the only team in the division with a winning record, and that's just the sixth-best record in baseball. Everyone else is under .500 and disappointed, and one team — the Baltimore Orioles — has imploded so badly that they fired manager Brandon Hyde last week.

Of the six divisions, the AL East is by far the worst. Here's where we stand with overall division records through Monday night's action

	Wins	Losses	Pct.	GB
NL East	122	114	.517	—
AL Central	123	115	.516	—
AL West	120	115	.511	1.5
NL West	118	118	.500	4.0
NL Central	118	123	.490	6.5
AL East	109	125	.466	12

The thing about this, too, is that it comes as something of the surprise. There are people who picked the Red Sox to win the World Series this year, but they're 24-25. There are people who thought the Orioles were a playoff team for the third straight year, but they are 15-31 and a complete disaster. We can't rip on the Toronto Blue Jays (22-24) too badly, because most prognosticators picked them to finish last in the division anyway. Hanging around .500 probably isn't a bad thing.

Then there are the Tampa Bay Rays, who are five games under .500 at 21-26 — and a fairly big disappointment as well.

They were given a huge early advantage by the schedule-makers — they have 37 of their first 55 games at their temporary home at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. But they've been terrible there, going just 11-18 so far after losing 4-3 Monday night to the Houston Astros in the first game of a nine-game homestand.

We thought the Rays would be better, and because they aren't, it's been wildly disappointing. What makes it worse is that the others in the division aren't playing well either. The Rays have been given a golden opportunity to make some noise early, and they've let it slip away.

We've chronicled all their woes. They don't hit much, rarely hit for power and have been really bad hitting with runners in scoring position the past three weeks. They were 1-for-10 in Monday night's loss with runners on, and that's not an uncommon thing lately.

The Rays have already played 13 games this season where they've scored one run or less. That's far too many. They've also had just so-so starting pitching when greatness was expected, and even their above-average bullpen has been shaky at times.

The Rays need to put all the pieces together and start making a run. They are a season-high five games under .500 now, tying that mark at 9-14 on April 22. They won five in a row after that. Be nice if that happened again.

I don't think anyone will be surprised if they start to pitch better. I won't be surprised if they hit better, either, and having Josh Lowe back is a start. They still have 13 games left with Baltimore and 10 each with Toronto at Boston. Have success, and they can get back in the AL East race — they're 6.5 games behind the Yankees right now — and get back in the thick of things in the playoff race.

It's a rare sight to see the AL East dead last in the division standings. That just never happens. The Yankees are good, and they have stars who are having great seasons like Aaron Judge, Paul Goldschmidt, Max Fried and Luke Weaver. But they also don't have enough starting pitching, will have to worry about deposed closer Devin Williams all year, and the bottom half of the order doesn't hit enough most nights.

Everyone else has flaws, too. Can the Rays right the ship and take advantage of it? We'd like to think so, but there are certainly no guarantees, right?