Matt Holliday and the Cardinals have swung their way to the top spot. (Getty Images)

On Braves’ lonely pain, the spoils of Miggy’s next Triple Crown, Rafael Soriano’s talented 4-year-old and lush third baseman trees.

The rankings (records through Wednesday):

1. St. Louis Cardinals (30-16; Previous: 2) – Man City to play Chelsea in an exhibition at Busch III. La Russa suggests batting goaltender eighth.

2. Texas Rangers (30-17; Previous: 3) – When Pierzynski had to go to disabled list, police had difficulty narrowing list of suspects.

3. Atlanta Braves (28-18; Previous: 5) – New clubhouse thing is T-shirts that read “Suffer in Silence.” Better than original idea: “Suffer in Succotash.”

4. New York Yankees (28-18; Previous: 9) – Yankees reveal mix-up: Rivera not technically retiring, he’s being promoted to higher league.

5. Cincinnati Reds (29-18; Previous: 12) – Chapman reportedly gorges self on pastries, then blows save, loses game. Apparently couldn’t resist that creamy Phillie-ing.

6. Pittsburgh Pirates (28-18; Previous: 11) – Bullpen goes by nickname “Shark Tank.”

Read More »from MLB Power Rankings: Cards at top of the deck

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Geez, we're in a hurry to decide Albert Pujols is over with.

Just like David Ortiz before him. Follow the day-to-day, and Mariano Rivera has been losing so much ground for so long it's a wonder he hasn't moon-walked himself back to Panama by now.

Remember when Miguel Cabrera would never be the hitter he once was? That was two years ago. Unless it was 3 ½ years ago. Folks had two shots at that.

Lance Berkman was done. Ryan Braun was exposed and ruined. Jason Giambi would never play again. Miguel Tejada was too old, Raul Ibanez was even older, Alex Gordon was a bust, A.J. Burnett couldn't hack it, Kyle Lohse wouldn't amount to anything, Jeremy Guthrie had fizzled out.

Albert Pujols plans to grind through the season on a bum foot and recovering knee. (Getty Images) We've become the I-told-you-so generation. So we wait for Bryce Harper to maim himself running into a beer vendor, or Tim Lincecum to turn to cinders on a mound, or Derek Jeter to stab at a grounder with his walker, or Albert Pujols to hit .224 for a month, and that's that. He's over with. Told you so.

So

Read More »from There's still life in 'sluggish' Albert Pujols

The Los Angeles Dodgers – in this case ownership, president Stan Kasten, general manager Ned Colletti – do not want to fire Don Mattingly. They want the players – start with Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, but there's a fair-sized list here – to play better. To hit. To pitch. To give a crap.

And so they wait. But not for much longer, not if a 18-25 record is any indication of what's to come for the rest of spring and then summer.

While management waits, it hears players say they respect their manager, the iconic Mattingly. It hears Kemp, for one, call him by the familiar, "Donnie B.," the "B" short for baseball. It understands the players like Mattingly. 

Matt Kemp has only one home run in 162 at-bats this season. (USA Today Sports) Dodgers leaders wonder why, then, they won't win for him, too.

They wonder why the players don't spend more time with hitting coach Mark McGwire, why they don't play as hard as their opponents, why they continue to lose games in the little gray areas where good teams thrive. That is, why they don't catch the ball as well as others, why they

Read More »from Are Dodgers too soft to save Don Mattingly's job?

LOS ANGELES – We wonder sometimes how much they care and still, for some, Bryce Harper plays too hard.

We watch them pace themselves until their contract years and still, for some, Bryce Harper is reckless.

We watch them lay down when the contract comes and still, for some, Bryce Harper must be smarter.

You wouldn't have had to go far Tuesday to come upon the opinion Harper is a threat to himself and his organization, the Washington Nationals. He'd run face-first into the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium the night before, chased a fly ball straight into the immovable object, then looked up from the warning track and asked his teammate, the center fielder, "Is it bad? Is it bad?"

It wasn't great.

Bryce Harper needed 11 stitches to close the gash in his chin after he ran into the wall. (AP)By Tuesday afternoon, Harper's beard had been shaved so a doctor could lace 11 stitches through his chin. He wasn't in Tuesday night's lineup, in part because he was feeling queasy. Specialists have thus far ruled out a concussion, though the Nationals' plan is to continue monitoring Harper for

Read More »from Bryce Harper vows to play as relentless as ever, and what's not to like about that?

LOS ANGELES – They've moved Matt Kemp's left foot back in the batter's box. It's just a few inches but still enough, they hope, to allow Kemp to clear quicker on the harder stuff inside. Over time he'd nudged that foot toward the plate, probably so he'd have a more reasonable shot at sliders on the far side of the strike zone, though it may have been unconscious. Either way, Kemp's setup had become closed, and now his stance is, while not open, at least sneaking up on neutral. The techies upstairs report the ball is coming off Kemp's bat well enough, presumably with the kind of velocity and trajectory that suggest better than one home run, eight extra-base hits and a .277 batting average through more than 150 plate appearances.

This, anyway, is what Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said.

There's more, actually. About balls being top-spun or back-spun and how they carry, about Kemp's habit, Mattingly said, of, "Putting the weight of the world on his shoulders," in which case it wouldn't

Read More »from Blaming Don Mattingly for Dodgers' poor start is simple-minded

Over the tumult of a busy restaurant Thursday night, the television a good 30 feet away, the Los Angeles Angels and Houston Astros barely discernible from our booth, my 17-year-old son pointed and said, "Wait, doesn't he have to pitch to a batter?"

I assured him we must have missed something. An injury. An illness. Some sort of predator had burst from a photo well and slaughtered Bo Porter's setup man.

Fieldin Culbreth was in charge of the crew that botched pitching change ruling. (AP)On Friday afternoon, Major League Baseball announced it had suspended crew chief Fieldin Culbreth for two games and fined umpires Adrian Johnson, Brian O'Nora and Bill Welke for missing a rule so basic and ingrained in the game that kids in Mexican restaurants in Sherman Oaks, Calif. were lodging protests.

So ended a brutal two days for baseball, for its umpires, and for those of us who believe umpires do a difficult job well and, as important, want to do it well.

First the home run ball in Cleveland that tied a game and that, somehow, was neither a home run ball nor tied a game, in spite

Read More »from Crew chief suspension appropriately ends bad couple days for MLB umpires

On the Loria Factor, the Blue Jays’ excuse against guys not throwing spitballs, saving potato bugs, free hot dogs in McCovey Cove and the evil black magic of tape recorders:

The rankings (records through Wednesday):

1. Baltimore Orioles (21-13; Previous: 5) – Brian Roberts sees specialist for hamstring injury. Makes you wonder if he’s seen so many specialists they don’t really seem that special anymore.

2. St. Louis Cardinals (21-12; Previous: 6) – Unable to establish bullpen that retires hitters, Cards turn to retired pitcher, ask for the gold watch back.

3. Texas Rangers (21-13; Previous: 2) – Darvish said he’d heard uncomplimentary things about new catcher Pierzynski, who figured Darvish must have been talking to, you know, everyone.

4. Detroit Tigers (19-12; Previous: 12) – Tigers take up cause of saving endangered tigers, privately relieved franchise didn’t name itself the potato bugs. Because they’re gross and nobody wants them around.

5. Atlanta Braves (20-13; Previous: 1) – B.J. a

Read More »from MLB Power Rankings: Orioles flying high

SAN FRANCISCO – The heavy-metal band had gathered in Northern California, across the Bay from San Francisco. The four members liked to work at the drummer's house. They had an album to write and compose and bleed over, and it was comfortable there. Also, they were close enough to Candlestick Park where they could kill a night or two watching the Giants play.

They'd call this, their fifth studio record, "Metallica," which would come to be known as The Black Album and go platinum. It was the summer of 1990 and the band, as the drummer, Lars Ulrich, saw things, was changing.

In that same summer, the son of a Panamanian fisherman pitched for the New York Yankees' affiliate in the Gulf Coast League. He'd signed with the organization a few months before for $3,000. At 20 years old, he threw 52 innings and allowed three runs, two of them unearned. Mariano Rivera exchanges pleasantries with Metallica's James Hetfield in 2005. (Getty Images)

"Up through the '80s, we were on a very progressive kick," Ulrich explained. "A lot of our songs were very long and very kind of complicated and

Read More »from Mariano Rivera's link to 'Enter Sandman' strikes special chord with Metallica