Klapisch: AL East Will Come Down To Yanks-Sox

From Bob Klapisch:Trying to call a division race in late May is the exercise of fools, not to mention professional suicide. That disclaimer aside, who here gets the feeling this just isn’t the Rays’ year in the AL East?Better question: why does it feel like this war will come to a couple of familiar superpowers – the Yankees and Red Sox? Maybe because it is. Going into Tuesday night’s action, only a game separated the two, which wouldn’t normally mean much except the Rays slipped under .500 after blowing a 10-0 lead to the Indians on Monday night. Meanwhile the Blue Jays have seen their pitchers get smoked at a .302 clip during an eight-game losing streak.For all the preseason predictions that the East – the AL’s true Beast – might be too closely packed to produce a 95-game winner seems to have less traction now. Incredibly, the Sox have the AL’s third-best slugging percentage, even though David Ortiz is no longer a threat, while the Yankees are on a pace for 914 runs, a 14 percent ...