The season marches on

Memorial Day has passed.  The veil of "Small Sample Size" is starting to lift.  Water is seeking its level.  Albert Pujols is hitting again.  And all seems a little more right with the baseball world.  Except it's not.

- The Washington Nationals may be the best team in baseball.  Second-most wins in all of MLB (behind the Dodgers, of all teams), and a +38 run differential to indicate they might not be a fluke.  The best team ERA and WHIP in baseball help a lot to overcome a sub-par 230 runs scored (4th-worst in NL).  For some perspective, the Nationals' team WHIP is 1.14.  The same as 2011 David Price, Tim Hudson, and Ricky Romero.  Strasburg, Gonzalez, and the whole of that staff could man the All-Star team with good reason.  Maybe it doesn't hold up, but they put a hurtin' on the Sox in Fenway last weekend.  Contender.  Definitely, in my mind. 

Oh, and this guy on offense, he's good -

- Stop me if you've heard this one before, but the Pittsburgh Pirates are still above .500 and a game behind Cincy in the NL Central.  Seems like they've done this a few times the past few years, but it's eventually got to get them out of their streak of ineptitude, right?  I'm not as sure about these guys being sustainable, though.  Their offense is Andrew McCutchen.  That's nice, but that's it.  He and Neil Walker are the only two regulars with an OBP over .300.  Not avg, OBP.  That's pretty much not very good.  Pedro Alvarez made a brief appearance as something resembling relevance, but now he's posting a .200/.265/.400 line, and thus we don't care anymore.  The pitching staff is led by James McDonald, A.J. Burnett, and Erik Bedard.  I know, who who and who?  Well, we know the oft-injured Bedard well enough, and I'm sure he'll be hurt by the 4th of July.  Burnett is getting the NL bump, so I feel like he is what he's going to be, and a FIP of 3.62 compared to an ERA of 3.93 means that, if anything, a slight uptick may be in order.  McDonald came to the Pirates from the Dodgers as part of a package for Octavio Dotel.  Dotel's been on about 7 teams (ok, actually he's on his 5th team since PIT, but whatev) since then, and McDonald is only throwing up a sub-1 WHIP and a career-high 3.3 K/BB.  They're trying to rise above the effects of a negative run differential, and I just can't see it lasting.  Maybe next year, guys.  Pretender.

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- Paging the Boston Red Sox, 2012 seems to have quite gotten underway without you..  Or maybe you could bribe Lady Physio to leave you alone for a while. This team hasn't had their optimal starting 9 on the field yet this year, and it may never happen.  Youkilis has been hurt off and on, Ellsbury has missed much of the season, with much more to go, and Crawford has yet to see the field.  On top of that, what was supposed to be an at least solid pitching staff with Lester and Buchholz and Beckett just hasn't been.  3rd-worst in MLB in ERA is just not going to get it done, but a 20th-ranked WHIP indicates a slight uptick may be on the way.  And I do emphasize slight.  Starters have been bad, bullpen's been bad, it's just a mess.  However, the #2 offense in terms of runs scored also means they can't be bad forever, either.  Only 2 games under .500 and 6.5 games out of first, they're not out of it yet.  Bubble.  Check back in a month.


- These two guys on Anaheim are really lighting it up.  First baseman and outfielder, they're leading this team back into the race.  Pujols?  Hunter?  Nooope.  Mark Trumbo and Mike Trout.  Ok, so Trumbo's not playing first anymore, but the point stands.  He leads the team in HR with 14 and OPS with 1.002.  That's right, he's got an OPS over 1000.  It's not Nine Thousaaaaaaaand, but it might as well be.  It's amazing, and he's completely locked in right now. 
As for that Trout kid, he's only posting a .958 OPS on his own.  And playing Gold Glove defense in CF.  Ya know, no big deal.  He's better than Harper.  He might be a top 5 overall OF in the game already.

- Now for the homer pick, Trevor Plouffe.  Yeah, he's finally broken over the Mendoza line, now just up to .231, and that's with an insanely hot June - 9 G, 5 HR, 12 RBI, .417 avg.  He's also sporting a crazy .278 ISO number.  ISO is a value that represents, essentially, extra bases per at bat, and is (total bases - hits)/at bats.  Presently Ryan Braun is running a .277 ISO.  Only the biggest sluggers in the game can sustain a .250, which translates to one double every 4 at bats, regardless of how many singles or outs are in between.  It's a value that represents power, and if he can sustain this, a lineup core of Mauer, Willingham, Morneau, Doumit, and Plouffe may actually be one that might pull a struggling team out of the cellar.

- Finally, this episode's call-up to watch for: Danny Hultzen, SEA.  Last year's #2 overall pick, Hultzen was said to have been picked at that slot primarily because of how close his abilities had already brought him to being major-league ready.  He's posted a 1.00 WHIP in 62 innings at AA and has scouts already of the mindset that his talents are beyond what the minor leagues can test.  I have to think that, despite his role in last week's no-hitter, Kevin Millwood was and is little more than a space saver for Hultzen.  It's a matter of time.

- Also a topic of conversation is this phenomenon of this weekend, which will be a daily feature come next season, and that is interleague play.  I'm a fan of it, myself, as seeing teams like the Cubs and Phillies come town is a rare treat, though I'd be interested to see if they could swap the rules based on home park (i.e. pitchers hit in AL parks, and vice versa), just so a team's fans could see a different flavor of baseball.  But no matter how you feel, it's here to stay.  What do you think?