The Yankees slid into first tonight behind a wild Tanyon Sturtze-led 11-10 win over the Rangers as former Yankee-Lou Piniella and his lowly Devil Rays knocked the Red Sox out of the top berth, 3-1. (It seems apropos that the evil of the unrestrained arrogance that is the Red Sox should be eclipsed at a time that, hopefully, the same thing happens to the evil represented by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. OK, off the soapbox.)

As I was "watching" the end of the game—I say "watching" in quotes since the YES video feed was lost so I was witnessing the worst of all possible worlds, a pseudo-YES radio broadcast on TV, oy!—as I listened to the end of the game, I thought about the low winning percentage for all three of the leading clubs in the AL East. I looked it up and the Yankees lead with a .549 winning percentage followed the O's and Sox at .543. In the NL West, you have the Padres leading a sub-pat pack with just a .538 winning percentage. Throw in two dogfights in the NL East and AL West, and you could get a bunch of sub-.550 division winners.

That made me wonder how often that happens. I know the '73 Mets won barely more than they lost, but they were an aberration, right? Here are all the sub-.550 teams to finish number one in their division or league for any full season (i.e., let's ignore the strike-shortened 1994 season):

In both leagues, the wild card leaders hover at around .550. There have been just three sub-.550 clubs that have won the wild card:

With so many teams seemingly constructed to win in the 85- to 90-win range, I guess it comes as no surprise. Heck, the perennially 86-game-winning Phils are still in contention. The difference may be that 86 wins bring a wild card slot this year.