ANAHEIM, Calif. – Look at what we have here. A late-August series between reputed juggernauts from the East and West, a pair of star-, revenue- and payroll-driven franchises, a scant 4½ games separating them in the American League wild-card race.

Bobby Valentine's days as Red Sox manager could be numbered. (Getty Images)One approaching desperate. The other having left desperate behind and proceeded directly to disgrace, flamethrower and surrender.

The Los Angeles Angels and Boston Red Sox met here Tuesday evening beneath an orange-blue sky and with a rainbow aflame beyond left-center field. Also overhead, ruminations on the job security of the managers, endless speculation on what the winter might bring, the relative moods of franchise owners and the specter of a third consecutive dark October for both.

The game doesn't have much patience for character flaws or professional imprecision or time spent on the disabled list. It does not bow to guaranteed, nine-figure contracts or dalliances with the luxury-tax threshold. Instead, it rewards consistency and

Coming off mild eyestrain, I considered abandoning these rankings with still a month to go in the season, saving my strength for next year’s rankings, not to mention a long and potentially fruitful career of rankings. My editor thought that was ridiculous.

The rankings (records through Wednesday’s games):

1. Washington Nationals (77-47; Previous: 1) – Pressing first topic in Presidential debate: Pitch or shut down Stephen Strasburg.

2. Cincinnati Reds (76-49; Previous: 4) – Minor leaguer Billy Hamilton breaks stolen base record, celebrates by hauling down antelope and treating teammates to mid-afternoon feed.

3. New York Yankees (72-52; Previous: 3) – Police report says Pineda had great top-end velocity, but lacked lane command.

4. Texas Rangers (72-51; Previous: 2) – Rangers think hard, even retrace steps, know they left Angels around here somewhere.

5. Atlanta Braves (71-53; Previous: 5) – Fredi Gonzalez tells mlb.com he occasionally touches Chipper "to make sure he's not a

LOS ANGELES – A rivalry found its way back to Dodger Stadium on Tuesday in a full ballpark on a hot summer night, in the makings of a division race, in Tim Lincecum versus Matt Kemp.Tim Lincecum had one of his better outings of the year in a win over the Dodgers. (AP)

Eight years had passed; time enough for the San Francisco Giants to win themselves a World Series and the Los Angeles Dodgers to compose themselves again. They'd stood on the boundaries of each other's turf and each other's history, but for too long only in the hearts of baseball romanticists.

For nearly that decade they fell out of each other's rhythms, so that one franchise rose as the other toppled. Disgrace chased good fortune. Dishonor hounded NL West titles.

Beyond the occasional chants and box score villains, beyond one horrible afternoon in a parking lot here, the Dodgers and Giants stayed out of each other's way. The Dodgers were insignificant in San Francisco. The Giants were another team in gray in L.A.

[Tim Brown: Giants lack a suitable replacement for Melky Cabrera]

Even the few

LOS ANGELES – The next Melky is out there. He's playing right field for your team or batting fifth or pitching the eighth inning.

He's beating the system today. His teammates admire and trust him. He's slugging .516 and learning to run a phony website.

And that's just the way it is.

What he'll one day leave behind – or risk leaving behind – is something like the San Francisco Giants, who Monday night were forced to choose between Gregor Blanco and Justin Christian in left field. Blanco was hitting .154 over the past month. Christian, 32, had 132 major-league at-bats.

"You know," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said, "it's a tough call between the two. Decided to throw Blanco out there to see if we can get him going."Madison Bumgarner's masterpiece put the Giants back in first place. (AP)

The regular guy out there might have won the batting title or been an MVP, but he could only beat the system for so long. Now the Giants' left fielder is batting eighth, trying to push an inning or two into the pitcher's spot, hiding there.

Bochy went with the

ANAHEIM, Ca. – Joe Maddon was asked about a camera crew that seemed to be all in the Tampa Bay Rays' business. The manager mirthfully assured the assembled reporters, those also all in the Rays' business, by the way, "They're not going to see our secrets. All the esoteric stuff will remain such. We don't unfetter for anybody."

The Rays reveal themselves gradually, from the methods by which they've shaped their franchise to the defenses they play and the countermeasures they devise. There's always something a little different, like lining up seven right-handed hitters Friday night against Los Angeles Angels right-hander Jered Weaver. Contradictory to his career, Weaver has been more effective this season against lefties. By the second inning the Rays had a 2-0 lead, thanks to home runs by a right-hander (B.J. Upton) and a left-hander (Ben Zobrist). By the fourth inning they led, 9-1, Weaver was gone, and Rays righties had seven hits in 14 at-bats against the Angels' ace.

By game's

ANAHEIM, Calif. – When the Tampa Bay Rays gathered Thursday afternoon in their clubhouse here, there was again reason for optimism and merriment.

After all, it had been hours since they'd last been no-hit.The Rays have been held to a scoreboard full of zeroes four times in the past three years. (AP) 

Of the many whimsical turns and occasional complexities that have ridden with the Tampa Bay Rays (nee Devil Rays) over their short lifespan, not the least of which being their rise from perennial doormat to annual contender, what may be most curious is their tendency toward fattening the historical resumes of pitchers.

Not theirs, generally. Other people's.

Born just more than 14 years ago, the Rays have been no-hit five times. Three have been perfect games, those coming in the past two years and one month, or over the course of 345 regular-season games.

To put that in perspective, from Cy Young in 1904 to Felix Hernandez on Wednesday, Major League Baseball has seen 21 other perfect games. That's about one every five years. On average, the Rays alone go one every

Perfect isn't supposed to come along very often in baseball. There's too much imperfect built in.

Yet, when Seattle Mariners right-hander Felix Hernandez threw his arms in the air Wednesday afternoon in Seattle, when 27 Tampa Bay Rays had come and gone in order, baseball had its third perfect game in fewer than four months, a record for a major-league season. Hernandez's followed Matt Cain's by two months. Cain's followed Philip Humber's by about seven weeks.

Beginning with Cy Young's perfect game in 1904, the first of the modern era, there have been 23, an average of about one every five years. It is, then, an unprecedented cluster of perfect games – five have been thrown in two years and two months, including those by Roy Halladay and Dallas Braden in 2010, and six beginning with Mark Buehrle's in 2009.

Felix Hernandez threw the third perfect game of the season. (AP) When the accomplished Hernandez took the ball Wednesday, it was on the very same field Humber threw his no-hitter April 21. When Hernandez began the process of taking apart

Used to be, baseball fans rooted for players. Then came free agency, and they rooted for jerseys. That wasn't as personal, or nearly as enjoyable, but the game was the game. Yesterday's arch villain was today's bedroom poster, and you lived with that.

Melky Cabrera has been suspended for 50 games after testing positive for testosterone. (AP)So Melky Cabrera showed up in a cream-colored uniform, having served the previous three seasons in New York, Atlanta and Kansas City. He was 27, just into his prime, and maybe a reasonable solution for the San Francisco Giants in left field.

He could be the new Cody Ross. Better than Pat Burrell, wiser than Brandon Belt, the 18th man to start in left for the Giants since Barry Bonds went away after the 2007 season.

Turned out that Cabrera was the best out there since Bonds. The people of San Francisco rightfully swooned, lauded the speed and power, and marveled as Cabrera drove his batting average from .255 in 2010 to .305 a year ago to .346 for them. In that time he'd put about 250 points on his OPS, an All-Star Game MVP trophy on