Best Slideshows - Team

The Seattle Mariners are owners of the third worst record in baseball this season, and typically when a team performs as badly as the Mariners have this season, someone has to pay for it.

In the case of the Mariners, the wrong people have paid for it. After turning the Mariners around from a 101 loss team in 2008 to an 85 win team in 2009, Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu and his coaching staff were fired Monday.

The San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants play the first game of a three-game set that is sure to be an epic battle between two NL West teams.

Both are locked in a battle for the top spot in the division, there's already trash talk going on, and both want a series win in a big way. The winner of this series will definitely be in the driver's seat.

There will be several things to watch for during this series and several keys for each team to come out on top, but here are 10 things to watch for over the next three days.

As a friend of mine said to me a couple of weeks ago, if there is anything the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies baseball season has taught us, it is that 162 games can make for a very long season.

In just the last six weeks alone, the Phillies have been without Chase Utley, have spent three weeks without Jamie Moyer or Shane Victorino, and have lost Ryan Howard.

And yet, however improbably, the Phillies have simply prospered during the absence of three of their biggest stars and one of their most consistent starters.

The NL West hasn't gone the way most of the "experts" thought it would. The team leading the division, the San Diego Padres, was expected to be the bottom feeder, while the predicted leader, the Los Angeles Dodgers, sits in third place seven games back.

That sets up for a showdown in the bay area this coming weekend between the first place San Diego Padres and the second place San Francisco Giants who are just two and a half games back. The two teams have met eight times this season with the Padres coming out victorious in seven of those games.

ESPN and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are reporting that Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones has torn the ACL in his left knee and that it is a potentially season-ending injury.

Being that the Philadelphia Phillies are only 2.5 games back, this injury could affect the division race as well as the Wild Card.

If the Phillies were to catch Atlanta, then the Braves would have to try and hold off the San Francisco Giants to even make the postseason.

I know, I know. You’ve never heard of Tom Milone.

Brandon Phillips escalated the Cardinals/Reds feud when he said this about the Cardinals:

“I’d play against these guys with one leg. We have to beat these guys. I hate the Cardinals. All they do is b---- and moan about everything, all of them, they’re little b------, all of ‘em. I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear: I hate the Cardinals.”

Shortly after securing their future long-term home, Marlins Ballpark, in Little Havana near Downtown Miami, the Marlins began their long-term deals with their marquee players. 

In 2008, the Marlins signed their all-star shortstop Hanley Ramirez to a six year, $70 million extension that goes through the 2014 season. It was their first such long-term deal since they signed first baseman Carlos Delgado to a five year deal in 2005. 

The Marlins continued that trend by locking up their ace, Josh Johnson to a four year extension worth $39 million in 2010. 

Emotions got the best of both the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night.

Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips made comments a few days earlier about the Cards that didn't sit well with St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina.

Before the bottom of the first inning, the pair got into a heated argument and the benches cleared.

Managers Tony La Russa and Dusty Baker got involved. So did starting pitchers and former allies.

With a playoff chase on the line and bad blood, this rivalry won't be going away anytime soon.

Brandon Phillips's comments from Sunday served as the catalyst for the brawl that erupted in last night's game between the NL Central co-leaders. 

It was Phillips who said, "I hate the Cardinals. All they do is b***h and moan about everything, all of them, they're little b****es, all of 'em."

That comment, followed by an unwelcome tap of Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina's shinguards, turned into a face-to-face spat between Phillips and Molina before a bench-clearing brawl broke out between the two teams.