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Sunday, May 23, 2010

The top shelf and the bottom of the barrel

By Chris Maza
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

The top shelf
Tampa Bay Rays
They still have the best record in the majors, so it's hard to argue with them being in this spot. Other than a 2-1 loss to Houston, it's been a pretty solid week for the Rays, including sweeping a quick two-game series with the Yankees. The Rays are 15-6 overall this month.

New York Yankees
It's been a while since the Yankees have been able to string a series of wins together. In fact, after Sunday's loss, the Yankees have now lost five of their last seven, including three straight to AL East teams. Still, they're in second place in the best division in baseball and still holds the second-best record in baseball.

Philadelphia Phillies
The last two days were rough on the Phillies, who were almost no-hit by Daisuke Matsuzaka, then shut down for eight innings by Tim Wakefield. That capped a pretty pedestrian week for the Phils, who split two-game sets with the Pirates and Cubs before losing two of three to the Red Sox. Jayson Werth is having a freakishly good year. He's a career .269 hitter who is batting .327 this season and is on pace for 124 RBI. His previous high was 99 last year.

Boston Red Sox
Pitching and defense is finally showing up for the Red Sox. Yes, they are in fourth place in the AL East, but they have now won five of their last seven games against the Yankees, Twins and Phillies. Everyone has been talking about David Ortiz' re-awakening, but Kevin Youkilis is doing his part as well, batting .390 with a 1.316 OPS in the month of May.

San Diego Padres
Who would have though the Padres would be in this position? Pretty much everyone figured the Adrian Gonzalez sweepstakes would be heating up by now, but now there seems to be even more of a reason for him to stay. Sure, part of the reason they are in first place in the NL West is because of how bad the division is, but an NL-leading 3.03 ERA helps as well. The huge ballpark helps at home, but the Pads still have one of the lowest road ERAs in the league.

The bottom of the barrel
Arizona Diamondbacks
Arizona has the best offense in the National League when it comes to scoring runs, but it's hard to win games when the pitching staff isn't up to snuff. The D-Backs have the absolute worst ERA in the majors at 5.65 and the bullpen has blown 10 of the team's 20 save opportunities.

Baltimore Orioles
After winning a few games against good teams to start the month and some weak opponents to begin in the middle of May, the Orioles have gotten back to losing, going 3-7 against the likes of Cleveland, Kansas City, Texas and Washington. Baltimore has the worst run differential in the American League at minus-62.

Cleveland Indians
A 4-3 win over Cincinnati halted a six-game losing streak. Cleveland has failed to score more than four runs in each of its last seven games, which is not a good thing when your pitching is giving up more than six runs per game. Grady Sizemore has been invisible, batting .211 with zero home runs.

Seattle Mariners
It's been a nightmarish Month for the Mariners, who have a 5-16 mark in May. What's even more telling is the team's inability to win close games. Seattle was 2-7 in one-run games in that month.

Houston Astros
Eight quality starts for Roy Oswalt and just two wins to show for it. Carlos Lee's batting everage is hovering around the .200 mark and only two players qualified for the batting title are hitting more than .250.