Baseball

The Pittsburgh Pirates have failed to live up to expectations so far in 2014, owning an overall record of 16-21.  

However, the team has won four of its last five games, as its batters begin to heat up.  

Let's take a look at each player on the active roster and the grades they've earned after the first quarter of the 2014 regular season.  

This list of grades includes only players on the active 25-man roster.  

The San Francisco Giants are 16-5 this season when facing opponents that have a .500 or better record, which is important to consider when making your MLB picks Tuesday, as they prepare to take on the Atlanta Braves at AT&T Park.

The Washington Nationals are 20-9 in Stephen Strasburg's last 29 starts as a road favorite, which is important to consider when making your MLB picks Tuesday, as they take on the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.

Sports bettors will find that the Nationals are 10/13 favorites in the pro baseball odds, with the betting total sitting at eight in the market.

If you asked me before the season whether I thought the Colorado Rockies offense could be the best in baseball, I wouldn't have ruled out the possibility.

With nearly a quarter of the 2014 Major League Baseball season expired, the Washington Nationals sit two games over .500 and in second place in the National League East.

The good news, despite trailing the Atlanta Braves, is that the Nationals' deficit in the division is just 1.5 games. 

The Dodgers made a splash when they signed Cuban middle infielder Alexander Guerrero this past offseason to play second base, but in the early stages of the 2014 season, it’s been another middle infielder that has emerged as a sensational second baseman.

After years of hacking at the threshold, Dee Gordon has finally materialized into the player that he was hyped up to be when he made his major league debut for the Dodgers in 2011.

The world champion Boston Red Sox stumbled out of the gate this year, posting a 13-16 record through May 1.  Since then the Red Sox have won six of their last eight games and all three series they've played.

Now 19-18, Boston owns a winning record for the first time in nearly six weeks, and is only 1.5 games back of the division lead.

The Miami Marlins got quite the shock on Monday. Jose Fernandez was sent to Los Angeles for an MRI to check his elbow. According to Ken Rosenthal of MLB Network, the diagnosis was a sprained elbow. That diagnosis specifically points to UCL involvement. The UCL is the ligament replaced in Tommy John surgery.

The San Francisco Giants are riding high, with an impressive 24-14 record on the season and a 7-3 record against their NL West division rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Here are some bold (or, perhaps, not so bold) predictions as the Giants move forward with the 2014 season. 

With Sunday's two-run single in the third inning of a 5-2 loss to the Houston Astros, Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles recorded his 500th and 501st career RBI, according to Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports. Jones needed 981 regular-season games and 3,680 at-bats to reach the 500-RBI milestone.