It is, but the Yankees and Rays are winning with pitching and that leads to less slumps and more runs of sustained dominance. You take a look at the teams who are realistically going to be in the playoffs, and the only team without reliable pitching is the Rangers. Holland and Feliz on the DL, Darvish pitching well, Oswalt trying to pitch in the AL, Harrison doing well, etc. The other teams in the running (CWS, ANA, NYY, TB, DET) all have solid pitching. That means falling behind and catching up is going to be a lot harder to do