1. The Toronto Blue Jays are the best hitting team in baseball. Leading the majors in hits (385), total bases (614), RBI (203), and runs (213), and thanks to the emergence of Aaron Hill (2nd in MLB in hits, 3rd in total bases, 7th in RBI, 9th in AVG) and Adam Lind (6th in RBI, .321 AVG), these guys are currently the team to beat in the AL East. Both the Sporting News and Fox Sports predicted the Jays would end the year in 4th place, and yet they’re 1st in their division and 2nd in all of baseball at 24-14. You can almost hear those Canadians saying “It’s aboot time” from here. 
    
2. The Texas Rangers are in 1st Place in the AL West and have the 3rd best record in the AL (20-14). Sure, they have the most dominant lineup in baseball and lead the league with 58 HR, but that was to be expected with the emergence of young sluggers Chris Davis and Nelson Cruz. But that their pitching could hold it together to win this many games or rank as one of the top 10 teams in batting average against (8th, .256) is indeed a surprise. It seems the veteran presence (and success) of Kevin Millwood (3 wins, 2.92 ERA) has rubbed off on rookie Matt Harrison who has pitched back to back complete games for the Rangers, and won his last 4 starts in a row. Credit also Frank Francisco who has been perfect in the closers role at 9 for 9 and who has yet to give up an earned run this year. 
    
3. The power numbers of largely undrafted middle infielders outweigh those of established sluggers. Marco Scutaro and Mike Fontenot each have 5 HR already, putting them on pace for 23 HR for the year. Compare that with Pat Burrell (1 HR) and Jason Giambi (3 HR), each of whom had at least 30 HR last season and you’ve got to start wondering what’s in the MI water. Still not convinced some evil plan is at work? Ben Zobrist’s 6 HR are equal to the combined HR totals of those 2 players PLUS David Ortiz (0), Vladimir Guerrero (1), and Edwin Encarnacion (1), all who hit at least 25 HR last year. Sounds like an evil plan to me.    
    
4.  The “Year of the Stolen Base” continues with Carl Crawford leading the pack with 22 SB, which is more than 15 different major league teams. His 6 stolen bases in a game tied the AL record held by Eddie Collins and barely surpassed Dexter’s Fowlers 5 steal effort just a week earlier. It seems just a matter of time before Crawford steals home to join the 3 other players this year (Ellsbury, Werth, and Bourn) to have managed that feat. According to the Elias Sport Bureau, by this time last year, no players had accomplished a single steal of home. Who knew? 
    
5. Zack Greinke has an infinitesimal 0.79 ERA Okay, I know I’m gonna hear it from fantasy analysts who’ll say they saw the 38 inning scoreless streak, 6-0 record, and more than 7:1 K to BB ratio coming a mile away. And sure, the guy in my fantasy baseball league (Hi Rob!) who always overpays for emerging stars (and also always contends) grabbed this guy in the 4th round of a 16 team mixed league, but c’mon. Most projections have him as about the 20th best pitcher, not the best. So maybe I am a bit bitter, which leads us to… 
    
6.  The “Year of the Slumping Starter” continues with top 20 SPs Josh Beckett, Francisco Liriano, Scott Kazmir, and Ricky Nolasco combining for a 11-13 record with a robust 6.48 ERA and 1.61 WHIP. I have Kazmir and Nolasco on 2 different fantasy teams, so I’ve thankfully minimized the damage these guys have done. But, if you had the bad fortune of drafting and starting all 4 of these pitchers for all 161 of their combined innings pitched, you would need a Super-Greinke-type 100 scoreless innings streak to get your ERA down to 4.00 exactly. Hey, it could happen. 
    
7. The light-hitting S.F. Giants, at 18-16, have a better record than most teams in baseball. In particular, they are outplaying the Rays, Twins, Braves, Phillies and Marlins but are still 2nd to the LA Dodgers and would not make the playoffs if the season ended today. Still, you’ve got to give this gutsy crew some props for even contending this long when Bengie Molina is their power-hitting cleanup hitter. 
    
8. Speaking of, Bengie Molina is 3th in the NL in RBI w/ 29. That’s right. He’s got more than Braun, Wright, Berkman, Lee, Howard, Utley, or Dunn. (Please send trade requests involving the aforementioned players in exchange for B. Molina to Anthony at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) 
    
9. Two words: Shairon Martis. At 5-0, this guy is tied for the NL lead in wins and leads the majors with his 1.000 winning percentage. A quick look at his minor league record shows he was promoted to the big leagues with a 21-21 minor league record. Read too much into this and you might think the Washington Nationals have a competitive squad this year. They don’t. 
    
10. (What’s that? No word limit this week? Well then we definitely have a tie for 10th place!) Rickie Weeks, the chronic underachiever in the category of batting average is batting over .280 and Andruw Jones, who many thought had played his final days of professional ball, is batting .300! If the latter isn’t enough of a statistical anomaly, consider that Jones batted just .157 in 2008 and already matched his HR total from last year with 3! As for Weeks, his power/speed combo and MI eligibility has always made fantasy baseball owners salivate, but his 3 year average was a piddling .246. That simple 35 point jump in average is the kinda thing fantasy baseball wet dreams are made of!!! 
     

Thanks for reading all 1,010 words. Hope it was as much fun for you as it was for me. Please vote carefully and beware the hanging chads.