Okay, so this is going to be late again (and I know you’ve all been breathless with anticipation). I meant to lay the groundwork yesterday evening but you know how it is. Something came up and I couldn’t get to it so I had to do them mostly from the office today. And of course I had a busy day so I haven’t had much time to devote to it today. So they also may not contain anything too extraordinarily groundbreaking – be warned. But at long last here we go.
Things have been pretty calm over the last week; nothing too out of the ordinary has happened. Teams on their way up are heading up, teams on their way down are settling to the bottom. Here’s WL’s Second Weekly Power Ranking, all statistics through Thursday, May 8th, 2003.
Power Rankings include but are not limited to the following factors: current record, overall performance, recent performance, anticipated performance, strength of schedule, recent developments, personal bias.
Rank Team Last chg. Record pct
1 New York Yankees 1 0 25-9 .735
2 Oakland A’s 4 +2 21-13 .618
3 Boston Red Sox 2 -1 22-12 .647
4 San Francisco Giants 3 -1 24-9 .727
5 Atlanta Braves 7 +2 23-11 .676
6 Montreal Expos 6 0 21-13 .618
7 Seattle Mariners 8 +1 21-13 .618
8 Philadelphia Phillies 5 -3 20-15 .571
9 Chicago Cubs 9 0 19-15 .559
10 Houston Astros 21 +11 18-16 .529
11 Kansas City Royals 10 -1 20-11 .645
12 Minnesota Twins 13 +1 18-15 .545
13 St. Louis Cardinals 11 -2 17-16 .515
14 Los Angeles Dodgers 17 +3 18-17 .514
15 Chicago White Sox 12 -3 16-18 .471
16 Anaheim Angels 18 +2 16-17 .485
17 Colorado Rockies 14 -3 16-18 .471
18 Texas Rangers 19 +1 15-19 .441
19 Cincinnati Reds 22 +3 17-18 .486
20 Toronto Blue Jays 24 +4 16-19 .485
21 Arizona Diamondbacks 23 +2 15-20 .429
22 Florida Marlins 16 -6 15-21 .417
23 Baltimore Orioles 15 -8 16-17 .485
24 Tampa Bay Devil Rays 26 +2 12-22 .353
25 Pittsburgh Pirates 20 -5 14-20 .412
26 San Diego Padres 25 -1 11-23 .324
27 Cleveland Indians 27 0 9-24 .273
28 Milwaukee Brewers 28 0 12-22 .353
29 New York Mets 29 0 14-20 .417
30 Detroit Tigers 30 0 7-25 .219
General Observations:
-The last four teams in the Ranking stay right where they are despite all four of them improving their winning percentage over the last week.
-The first three teams in the Ranking are AL teams, but 6 of the following 7 are from the NL.
-Only one of the Top 10 lost the last game they played. Coincidence… or something more? (would it be too much to include a Weekly Trivia Question? Here it is: Which of the Top 10 teams in this week’s Ranking did not win their last game? No fair looking it up first. Answer at the bottom.)
Quick look at the Top 5:
1- Yankees: Bastards. They spent the last week dominating the AL West… except for Oakland.
2- Oakland: Only team to take a series from New York so far this year. Rematch coming up starting tonight, and I’ll be there.
3- Boston: Won 7 of their last 10 mostly against KC and Minnesota. Unspectacular to be sure, but at least they’re winning the games they’re supposed to. They’re definite Top 5 material, if you want to call giving them 3rd a homer pick I won’t argue.
4- San Francisco: They just won five in a row vs Cinci and at Florida. In those 5 games Joe Nathan (write that name down by the way… if you haven’t already) notched 2 wins and Worrell saved 4. Think this 'pen can get it done without Nen?
5- Atlanta: Gotta let 'em into the Top 5 the way they’ve been winning. After starting the season 4-8 they’ve gone 19-3 (I believe that’s called ‘lights-out,’ folks). The Giants come to town starting tonight – look for this series to knock one team out of next week’s Top 5.
Other notes:
6- Montreal: Quietly getting it done. After a sweep at St. Louis where the Cardinals staff kept them to 4 runs in 3 games, they hosted the Pads and quickly racked up 28 runs in a 3-game sweep of their own.
10- Houston: This week’s Big Winner. A 7-game streak will do that for you. They just got done sweeping the Pirates in 4 by a combined score 37-16. More importantly, Wade Miller got his first win with a strong game. Just Miller, Roy Oswalt, and their hitting will be enough to keep them contending in the NL Central.
13- St. Louis: Jason Isringhausen will be out a month longer than originally expected. Does anybody out there think this makes a difference? They just dropped 4 at Cinci (yikes) after winning 7 straight against the NL East. Before that they lost 6 of 7.
16- Anaheim: Just completed a home sweep against Cleveland after dropping 3 at Toronto, getting totally shut down by the Jays’ questionable staff (4 runs scored in 3 games at the SkyDome). The Halos haven’t won a series against a team other than Cleveland since they completed a 3-game sweep of the stumbling A’s on April 13th.
17- Colorado: I happened to watch much of their last series against Atlanta on TBS, and this team looked absolutely wretched. They appear to be good enough to compete with other mediocre teams, but they just look weary, and don’t seem to be able to raise their level of play to meet a good team.
20- Toronto: Amazingly, this team gains 4 spots in the Ranking despite being on a 4-game bender.
21- Arizona: Losing Craig Counsell is really going to hurt the D-Backs. Oh wait, no it’s not (here’s hoping the ageless Carlos Baerga sees some more PT out of it. Love that guy).
22- Florida: Incredibly, despite being one of two teams this week to lose 6 games since last week’s Ranking, AND being the only team to have won 0 games, the Fish are not this week’s Big Wiener. They got swept at Houston and vs SF and I sympathize. They should rebound this week with a series vs Colorado and Charles Johnson’s arm behind the plate. Anyone have an over/under on how many bags they’ll steal in their next 6 games (vs Col, at SD)
23- Baltimore: This week’s Big Wiener. They went 1-5 since last week’s Ranking, including getting swept at home by the Tigers. I’d say that should earn any team an 8-spot drop.
25- Pittsburgh: Squeezed in 7 games since last week’s Ranking, losing 6. Last week they looked like a team battling for respectability (and a .500 record), this week they’re just another bottom-dweller.
30- Detroit: I really wanted to give these guys a better Rank (this week might be their best shot at doing better than 30), but they’ve only got 7 wins and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. They’ve won their last 4, finishing with the aforementioned sweep at Baltimore. Most incredibly, this team plated 29 runs in those 4 games, averaging just over 7 runs a game for an entire team that’s struggling with the Mendoza Line. Their 4-game streak also included the 2nd win for both Jeremy Bonderman and Nate Cornejo, a couple of hard-luck youngsters (can you imagine what Bondy wouldn’t give to be back in the Oakland system, Schott’s ignorance regarding learning disability or no?). Not only that, they barely averted being on a 5-game streak when they lost an extra-innings nailbiter to TB on May 3rd.
Trivia Answer: The Seattle Mariners, who just got done losing 2 to the Yanks by a combined score of 23-7 (Yep, that was Freddy Garcia giving up 9 earned on 7 H and 2 BB in just 2 2/3. Where did this guy go?).