SCANLON: Trying to make sense of MLB at the halfway point

The Tampa Bay Rays opening the second half of their season at Cincinnati serves as a reminder that this will be the last baseball season of its kind. More on that later.

The first half of the 2022 season was marked by the resurgence of the Yankees, embarrassing offensive numbers, poor attendance numbers and a slew of injuries.

The last three factors can be traced to the spring lockout that accomplished nothing except to remind fans what little regard Major League owners have for their own enterprise.  The lockout and its sloppy aftermath delayed the start of the regular season by a week and, coupled with an expanded playoff plan, pushed the World Series deep into November.

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Is there anyone, even among baseball owners and executives and marketing experts, who believes that playing World Series games at night, in November, in New York or Chicago or Boston or Toronto or Milwaukee, is a good idea?

Will it be a good optic?

The atrocious lack of offensive production in the first months of this season came as something of a post-lockout surprise, since everyone was worried about how the lockout would affect pitchers, not hitters. And remember, this is the first season of the universal DH, which is supposed to inject more scoring into the game.

The first half of the first season in which the National League adopted the DH produced an MLB-wide batting average of .242, a full 10 points below that of three years ago. The universal slugging percentage of .395 is a full 40 points below that of the last pre-pandemic season of 2019, further proof that MLB's gimmicks of the last 50 years, all designed to put more crooked numbers on the board, have failed.

Up next? Outlawing shifts. Sure, that'll work.

The Yankees, who have won the World Series only once in this century, are the team to beat as we go to the All-Star break  this week. Their quick return to the top has been accomplished with home runs, sure — Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton are among only 11 players with 20 or more home runs. But that was expected. The Yankees are built that way.

What has pushed them to the top has been their starting pitching, which has been better than that of the Dodgers and Astros to this point. We'll see if that continues in the final season of the intraleague era.

Stating next season, every Major League team will play every other team at least once each season. It will make the schedule more equitable, far less monotonous and more fan-friendly.

If for example, you are a Dodgers fan or a Cubs fan living in the Tampa Bay area, your team will visit Tropicana Field every two years. Teams will face their divisional rivals 14 times, not 19 times. It looks like a very positive change, for a change.

What is going to change in the second half of this season? Much will depend on who comes back from injuries, and when, and how much of an impact it will have.

San Diego has done very well without Fernando Tatis Jr. Minnesota stayed in first place despite an injury to Carlos Correa. On the other hand, losing Bryce Harper for two months has apparently destroyed the Phillies.

The Red Sox compiled a winning record without much input from Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Whitlock, all of whom expect to be plugged back into the pitching rotation this month. How much better will the Mets be when/if Max Scherzer and Jacob deGram are filling two rotation spots?

The Rays are hoping to get Brandon Lowe back from his back injury, but at this point their injury outlook is rather bleak. It cannot be said with certainty that Mike Zunino, Andrew Kittredge, Nick Anderson, Pete Fairbanks, J.P. Feyereisen, Manuel Margot or Tyler Glasnow will play again this season.

And yet the Rays, who seem to be hitless going into the sixth inning about three times a week these days, continue to win more often than not.

Here is my midseason 1-through-30, with their preseason rank in parenthesis: 1. Yankees (10); 2. Astros (3); 3. Dodgers (1); 4. Mets (16); 5. Braves (2); 6. Twins (19); 7. Red Sox (6); 8. Rays (7); 9. Brewers (8); 10. Cardinals (11); 11. Padres (15); 12. Blue Jays (5); 13. White Sox (4); 14. Giants (12); 15. Guardians (22); 16. Phillies (13); 17. Angels (18); 18. Marlins (21); 19. Mariners (14); 20. Orioles (29); 21. Rockies (26); 22. Diamondbacks (24); 23. Rangers (20); 24. Tigers (9); 25. Pirates (30); 26. Royals (17); 27. Cubs (23); 28. Athletics (27); 29. Nationals (25); 30. Reds (28).

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: SCANLON: Trying to make sense of MLB at the halfway point