June 28, 2008
Sub .500 Division
The Arizona Diamondbacks lost to the Florida Marlins Friday night 3-1. That puts the Diamondback at .500, 40-40. A loss today and they will lead their division with a sub .500 record. While some teams have come close, we've never had a sub .500 team make the playoffs before. The AL West was like this in 1994, but the strike prevented a team that poor from joining the post-season festivities.
Arizona is 20-8 vs. the NL West, so maybe once they get back to playing intra-division games, their record will rise again.
There's been a closer call than the '94 AL West. Namely the '05 NL West, won by San Diego at 81-80: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/standings?date=20051001
The only thing that saved the Padres from being that first sub-.500 playoff team was that they got to play so many games against other terrible NL West teams at the end of the season. The same thing will probably happen this year.
