From today’s b the paper…

What the heck is going on around here? At the midway point of the 2008 season, Major League Baseball has been sucked into a bizarre, alternate universe, where a perennial doormat is a dark horse to win the American League East, a notorious, unlikable malcontent is keeping pace with A-Rod and Joe Mauer and the hometown Baltimore Orioles surprisingly aren’t that terrible.

Something’s not right here. I’m about to crawl into a bomb shelter for the next four months until the World Series is over, just in case.

The Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays — insert that screeching record sound here — are battling it out in a three-game series this week for first place in the AL East and the best record in baseball. The Rays? Shouldn’t we be talking about the New York Yankees here? Give me a second to double check …

Yes, the ballclub formerly known as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays is one of the best teams in baseball and a few games ahead of the real devils, the Yankees, in the race for the playoffs. The Rays in the playoffs? Pardon me while I channel my inner Jim Mora. Playoffs? Are you kidding me? The playoffs? Baseball doesn’t do parity; it’s not its thing.

With a talented young pitching staff headlined by Scott Kazmir and Matt Garza, a balanced lineup and a struggling slugger (Carlos Pena) who should heat up in the second half, the Rays might just make it happen. The Earth is going to crash into the sun anyway, so why not?

We live in a world where supposed World Series contenders such as the Mets, the Rockies, the Indians and the Mariners have been complete duds. Milton Bradley is among the AL leaders in batting average when he’s not busy chasing down television announcers and slowly alienating himself from pretty much everyone in baseball not named Milton Bradley.

A group of nondescript pitchers including Joe Saunders, Cliff Lee, Vicente Padilla, Aaron Cook and Edinson Volquez are among the league leaders in wins, along with some guy named Mike Mussina. What is this, 1996?

Wait, it can’t be. Barry Lamar Bonds isn’t cranking baseballs over fences and scowling and growling at his naysayers. Unbelievably, Bonds has quietly faded into obscurity, even though he’s probably still capable of doing both of those things with the best of them. (You can’t honestly tell me that no team could use this guy, black cloud and all.)

Even the O’s, a team some people had written out of this season’s playoff picture as early as last July, have been hovering close to the .500 mark all season long.

There have been some glimpses of normalcy — the American League dominated the National League in interleague play, and the Royals and Nationals still stink — but things usually start to revert back to how they should be by July 1. For whatever reason, they haven’t, and it doesn’t look like they will any time soon.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m heading underground. Let me know when the dust settles.

—Cal Ripken Jr. Miguel Tejada. Alex Cintron? The Orioles’ less-than-enjoyable game of musical shortstops continued last week with Cintron taking over as the team’s starting shortstop. New guy, same results. When he landed the starting gig, Cintron was surprisingly hitting .326 in 43 at-bats. Now, just a handful of games later, he’s plummeting toward the Mendoza Line, and even worse, the Bynum Line.

The shortstop position was the Orioles’ pillar of strength for nearly three decades, but now it’s clearly the team’s biggest weakness. Cintron is the best option right now — he may be a somewhat serviceable stopgap — but he’s certainly not the long-term answer. He’s hardly a short-term one.

Matt Vensel is a content creator for b. Contact him at matt@bthesite.com

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