Dodgers Surge to Top Spot of MLB Power Rankings at LinesMaker

Dodgers Surge to Top Spot of MLB Power Rankings

As reported on MLB.com, this week’s MLB power rank­ings see the Dodgers surge to top spot.

 

This Week’s Power Rank­ings

This Week	Move­ment	Power Player	Last Week
1		A three-game home sweep of the Nation­als over the week­end has put the boys from Chavez Ravine in our top spot this week. Their 16–6 record is tied for tops in the Majors with the Rangers, and a lot of it still has to do with Kemp, who con­tin­ues to astound. The lat­est feat of hero­icism was a 10th-inning walk-off homer deep, and we’re talk­ing DEEP, into the Los Ange­les night on Saturday.	3
2		How good are you when you only win six of your last 10 games but still man­age to be tied for the best record in the game? Well, as good as a two-time defend­ing Amer­i­can League cham­pion should be. Texas heads up to Toronto now for a com­pet­i­tive road bat­tle against an AL East oppo­nent, but the Rangers are still rolling along.	1
3		The Car­di­nals went 5–5 in their last 10 games and suf­fered a Sun­day loss to the Brew­ers because of some costly baserun­ning gaffes. In other words, not everything’s per­fect for the defend­ing World Series champs, and despite all that, look where they are: 14–8, in first place in the National League Cen­tral despite pitch­ing woes, and on Tues­day they’ll get another bat back in the lineup cour­tesy of a healthy Allen Craig.	2
4		The Rays started to roar again, win­ning six in a row before drop­ping a deci­sion in Texas. So what did they do? Beat the Rangers again on Sun­day, tak­ing advan­tage of a stel­lar per­for­mance by one of their many young pitch­ing stars, David Price. The vic­tory gave the Rays their fourth con­sec­u­tive series win. They have won nine of their past 11 games to remain in a tie with the Ori­oles for first place in the Amer­i­can League East. They just never seem to go away.	7
5		And nei­ther do these guys. Despite the dev­as­tat­ing news of the loss of starter Michael Pineda for the sea­son with a torn labrum, the Bronx Bombers are still right there in con­tention in the AL East. A Sun­day win over Detroit put them at 12–9 and 1 1/2 games behind co-division lead­ers Tampa Bay and Bal­ti­more. A big rea­son why: Derek Jeter is back. And Andy Pet­titte could be soon.	4
6		Don’t let the week­end sweep at the hands of the Dodgers fool you. This team’s pitch­ing is very much for real, and we’ll see how the rook (Harper) fits into an improv­ing team that’s already serv­ing notice that it could con­tend all year.	6
7		Sun­day brought more good news to Atlanta, with vet­eran starter Tim Hud­son return­ing from back surgery to help anchor the Braves’ pitch­ing rota­tion. With their young core of hit­ters pro­duc­ing and the bullpen still led by closer Craig Kim­brel, the Braves’ 14–8 record has them in great shape atop the NL East.	8
8		It’s not how you start, but how you keep things going after your hot start dis­solves into regular-season grow­ing pains. The Tigers have more storms to weather now, with out­fielder Del­mon Young’s well-publicized trou­ble, but they seem to be doing OK, and within a few weeks they should have No. 2 starter Doug Fis­ter back to help shore up the rotation.	5
9		Who would have pre­dicted this? Sure, it’s still early, but the young arms Bal­ti­more has spent so much time devel­op­ing might finally be pay­ing off, and Sunday’s walk-off win over the A’s at Cam­den Yards was just another exam­ple of the good times that are going on in Charm City. Can the Birds keep fly­ing high? We’ll know more at the end of May.
10		Every­one knows how good this team can be if it’s healthy, and that’s the big ques­tion. For­tu­nately for Phillies fans, that ques­tion might be closer to being answered. Rota­tion stal­wart Cliff Lee isn’t far from return­ing from an oblique strain, and lineup fix­tures Ryan Howard (Achilles) and Chase Utley (chronic knee sore­ness) are pro­gress­ing well in their recov­er­ies and could both hit rehab fields before long.	11
11		Hey … Tim Lince­cum won again! This, as all Giants fans know, is not just good news. It’s required news if San Fran­cisco is to make a run that even remotely resem­bles the one they put together in win­ning it all two years ago. Good things are start­ing to hap­pen all over the rota­tion by the Bay, how­ever, and that’s the main com­po­nent for suc­cess for Bruce Bochy’s club. And Pablo Sandoval’s con­tin­ued hot hit­ting doesn’t hurt, either.	14
12		Remem­ber the Tribe started off last sea­son like gang­busters but faded quickly as the sum­mer got hot­ter? Well, the Indi­ans are at it again, putting together a solid early sea­son under skip­per Manny Acta. They took a home series from the Angels on Sun­day and should wel­come a vet­eran (MLB/Newsfeed) – and a win­ner (MLB/Newsfeed) – in Johnny Damon this week, which should help the team on the field and in the clubhouse.	12
13		They play hard every night, and there’s a lot to be said for that, espe­cially in a wide-open NL East. New York is sud­denly a con­tender again, get­ting con­tri­bu­tions from vet­er­ans such as a reju­ve­nated Johan San­tana and new­com­ers like out­fielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis.
14		All it took was a week away from home, and it seems that the Red Sox are right back where they want to be. Sure, they’ll have to do it with­out Carl Craw­ford, and sure, their bullpen sit­u­a­tion isn’t exactly fluid, but when you’re hit­ting the ball the way Boston has been dur­ing vic­to­ries in six of their past seven games, those crooked num­bers tend to hide a lot of weaknesses.
15		Jay Bruce has home­red in four straight games, the Reds took a series from the Astros, evened up their record at 11–11, and con­tin­ued to show progress. They’ve won seven of their past 10, their early-April woes are a dis­tant mem­ory, and they’re head­ing into May with as much momen­tum as anyone.

 

BetLM's sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice. For more MLB news see: Dodgers surge to top spot of MLB Power Rank­ings.

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