Baseball

Major League Baseball , like many other sports leagues, has historically been reactive, instead of proactive when it comes to player and fan safety on and off the field. Unfortunately, it often takes a tragic event to improve the safety of a sport.

This morning I chased a rogue eyebrow hair for 46 tries. Then I opened the patio door and threw my cheap tweezers as far into the woods as I could. Now I know why people pay $10 for a pair of tweezers. Nothing is more frustrating than something getting the best of you.

Ask little Davey Herndon.

On Jan. 1, 1927, former Chicago White Sox shortstop Charles "Swede" Risberg told baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, in a semi-open hearing, that in 1917, his Chicago White Sox "bought' four games from the Detroit Tigers.

Power Rankings for MLB Week Four.

1) New York Yankees (12-6)

Supporting Players: Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano, Brett Gardner, Jorge Posada

Best Game: Saturday, May 1 vs. CWS (John Danks vs. Javier Vazquez)

2) Tampa Bay Rays (14-5)

Supporting Players: B.J. Upton, Carl Crawford, Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria

Best Game: Wednesday, April 28 vs. OAK (Dallas Braden vs. James Shields)

Vazquez has now pitched 20 innings, just under half of Wang's 42 last year. Otherwise, their statistics are eerily similar. Both of them have ERAs in the 9s. Vazquez's FIP, or sabermetric ERA, is 6.32, actually higher than Wang's 5.38 was. (FIP is a formulated "ERA" that uses home runs, strikeouts, and base on balls as inputs.)

The Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees will be in a battle for the division title all season. Each team has been getting consistent starting pitching and timely hits. One thing is for sure, the 3-16 O's wont be challenging for the No. 1 spot.

Over in the N.L., every team is within 3.5 games out of first. Absolutely nothing has been decided yet and every team still has hope...for now.

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Fresh off the Orioles third win of the year, a heart-pounding, nearly coma-inducing 8-7 win over the Bo Sox, I present the second edition of "Who's Hot and Who's Not" for 2010.

Several players from last week's list came back down to earth a bit, including Justin Dalles and Zach Britton, but they're far from being on the "Not" list.

So without further ado...let's check out who's hot...

...but not like that...

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TMI is a biweekly column published on the website, tmicolumn.com . Every Monday, the column recaps each major league baseball team’s top storyline through the current week, and highlights the most impressive of all.

These Power Rankings are grouped by teams according to expected rankings, not by record: Top Performers (teams expected to be there), Underperformers, Over Performers, and Right Where They Are Supposed to Be. 

Scott Olsen rebounded after a poor start last week to to pitch seven innings while allowing only six hits, no runs, and recording eight strikeouts against a strong hitting Dodgers club. Tyler Clippard and Matt Capps came in to close the door, helping complete the shutout and giving the Nationals a 1-0 victory to take the series from Los Angeles.

 To help preview the coming series against the Chicago Cubs, we sat down with Joe Aeillo from an outstanding Cubs blog, View From The Bleachers . Go check out their site, they do some really cool stuff over there. I also prepared a short preview for them which I will post here once it gets put up. Anyways, Joe and I talked about Riggleman, Strasburg, Zambrano, and getting the Cubs back to the World Series.