Power Poll: Dodgers, Yankees on Top

Baseball News - Ryan Fagan - SportingNews.com

Yep, interleague play starts up again this weekend. Should be lots of fun.

But if you want to find the most passionate baseball of the week, turn to Omaha (and, no, not because you're nostalgic to see Bruce Chen or Brandon Duckworth make a start for the Royals' Class AAA team).

The College World Series kicks off on Saturday at Rosenblatt Stadium, and if this year's tournament is anywhere near as exciting as last year's, there's every reason to be glued to your television set. What happened in last year's CWS? Funny you should ask.

The best baseball book published this year, The Road to Omaha, tells the story of the 2008 event in brilliant color. The depth of the detail author Ryan McGee provides is astounding. McGee opens up the baseball passion of Omaha--its people, its politicians, its history--and explores the city's deep connection to this event.

He takes you into the lives of the players, the coaches and their families. The coaches gave him the type of access that's almost unthinkable in these closed-doors days--he accompanied the teams around all day during the championship week and sat with them for 90-minute interviews on elimination days. That access is reflected in every single page of the book.

Do yourself a favor. Buy the book and read it before the first pitch this weekend. And then see the College World Series like you never have before.

1. Dodgers (last week: 1). The secret to the Dodgers' success isn't complicated. Joe Torre's top three relievers--Jon Broxton, Ramon Troncoso and Ronald Belisario--have a combined 1.88 ERA in just over 100 innings pitched. Torre's top three starters--Chad Billingsley, Randy Wolf and Clayton Kershaw--have all allowed significantly fewer hits than innings pitched (178 hits in 223 1/3 innings). Pitching wins baseball games.

2. Yankees (3). Another big week for the Yankees on the slate. They took two of three against the Rangers, then split the first two against Tampa Bay. After Monday's series finale with the Rays, the Yankees play three at Fenway against the Red Sox and then get their first look at the Mets' new home.

3. Rangers (4). Nelson Cruz is no spring chicken (he'll be 29 on July 1), but some players just take longer to reach their potential. He hit .330 with seven homers in 31 games late last season for the Rangers, and now he's leading the team with 17 homers to go with his .292 average. Texas is his fourth career organization--he came to the Rangers as part of the Carlos Lee deal in July 2006.

4. Red Sox (6). Jon Lester brought his struggles to an abrupt halt, winning his past two games and striking out 23 in 15 innings. David Ortiz, on the other hand, still is floundering (the 302-foot homer doesn't mean much).

5. Brewers (2). The Brew Crew went 3-4 this week and actually increased their lead in the N.L. Central.

6. Phillies (7). Jimmy Rollins is batting .217 (with a .257 on-base percentage), Brad Lidge has a 7.27 ERA (with six blown saves) and the team ERA is 4.68 (it was 3.89 last year). And yet, they're leading the N.L. East by two-and-a-half games. Seems as if the rest of the division might have wasted an opportunity, eh?

7. Tigers (9). Edwin Jackson is third in the major leagues in WHIP.

8. Blue Jays (10). Ace Roy Halladay is awesome (10 wins, has pitched at least seven full innings every single start). DH Adam Lind has been awesome (recent stretch of 14 hits in 24 at-bats, a .583 average). Right fielder Alex Rios, well, hasn't (recent 2-for-19 stretch that included nine strikeouts)

9. Mets (8). Will they be able to weather the injuries? Is it a bad thing that 40-year-old Gary Sheffield is second on the team in home runs? Or that Ramon Castro has 118 fewer at-bats than David Wright but the same number of homers? Three, by the way.

10. Cardinals (5). This much seems painfully clear in the Gateway City: Even with the great Albert Pujols cemented in the No. 3 spot in the order, without some sort of help from outside the organization, the Cardinals' offense is not good enough to earn a playoff spot.

11. Cubs (13). The series against the Twins at the end of this week will be an interesting one for the Cubs, as they face off with another team that's not exactly reaching expectations.

12. Giants (18). In their four wins this past week, the Giants gave up a total of five runs. That's the way it will have to be unless something is done to supplement the offense via the trade market.

13. Rays (19). On Sunday, the bullpen squandered a chance to secure the team's first five-game winning streak of the season. The Rays already had two such streaks at this point last season.

14. Reds (11). The Reds are in the midst of a stretch with 13 of 16 games on the road. Good thing for the Reds, though, is that the next six are against Washington and Kansas City.

15. Angels (12). Kelvim Escobar's return to the rotation should be a huge boost. He took the loss in his first start since the 2007 season, but that had more to do with Edwin Jackson's brilliance than anything Escobar did wrong.

16. Braves (14). Rookie Tommy Hanson's ERA sits at 9.00 after throwing six innings in his major league debut. Here's betting it drops after his next start and never again reaches such ugly heights.

17. Twins (15). In each of his three best starts this year, including this past Friday, Francisco Liriano allowed just one earned run. He followed up those first two with his worst starts of the season, giving up seven earned runs in each. How he responds in his next turn (scheduled for Wednesday in Oakland) will be key to the Twins finally getting over the .500 mark for the first time since the middle of May.

18. Mariners (20). The M's have won three consecutive series by 2-1 counts.

19. Marlins (21). In the big picture of the National League playoff race, the Marlins don't look like contenders. But they're very scary to opponents on a day-to-day basis.

20. Padres (17). The Pads are just 3-8 since that 10-game winning streak was snapped.

21. Pirates (26). The sweep of the Mets was the highlight of the week; the trade of Nate McLouth was the lowlight for the players in the Pirates' clubhouse.

22. Rockies (28). Colorado has scored 38 runs during its current four-game winning streak; Ian Stewart is batting .556 with three homers, nine RBIs and eight runs scored in those four games.

23. Athletics (29). The A's have won six games in a row and rookie Vin Mazzaro hasn't allowed a run in either of his first two major league starts, covering 13 2/3 innings.

24. White Sox (16). Gordon Beckham, the first-round phenom who has hit .322 at three levels in his minor-league career, has started his time in the bigs with 10 hitless at-bats.

25. Diamondbacks (23). Mark Reynolds set a major league record with 204 strikeouts last year but is striking out at a greater pace this season. He struck out 37.9 percent of his at-bats in 2008; he's at a 39.1 clip in 2009 (81 strikeouts in 207 at-bats).

26. Astros (27). Houston is 7-3 in the past 10 games. Before you get too excited, though, know those 10 games were all against Pittsburgh and Colorado.

27. Indians (25). Cliff Lee has a tidy 2.00 ERA in his past 10 starts; he's only 3-4 in those games, though.

28. Royals (24). At least they're not the Nats.

29. Orioles (22). The O's have scored more than two runs just once in their past seven games; not surprisingly, they're 1-6 in those games.

30. Nationals (30). Seriously, every single other team in the majors has at least nine more wins than the Nationals.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine.

Nine. You get the point.

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