NL East

The Washington Nationals are already the feel-good story of the early 2012 Major League Baseball season. They are tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the best record in the National League at 14-6, plus they have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

Here we go again, Mets fans.

Today the New York Mets (9-8) placed left fielder Jason Bay and starting pitcher Mike Pelfrey on the disabled list.

Bay suffered a non-displaced fracture of a rib on his left side while attempting a full-extension catch in Game 2 of Monday's doubleheader with the San Francisco Giants.

Jose Reyes returned to CitiField Tuesday night for the first time since he sold his considerable shortstop talents to the Miami Marlins. He heard more boos than cheers, and he continued to struggle at the plate.

Jair Jurrjens isn’t getting any better. Since suffering a knee injury in the second half of the 2011 season, Jurrjens has looked uncomfortable on the mound has has vastly underperformed for an Atlanta Braves team that needed him to be one of the consistent starters in their rotation.

The Washington Nationals have been plagued with injury after injury since spring training. They might be dealing with their biggest injury yet as Ryan Zimmerman was sent for an MRI on Tuesday night.

Today is "Jose Reyes Day" at Citi Field because it's the first time Jose Reyes will be playing at Citi Field as a member of the Miami Marlins, whom he signed a six-year, $100 million contract with in the offseason. So far, Reyes has gotten off to a cold start, but assuming he stays healthy, he will likely get back to being the best leadoff hitter in the game and baseball's best shortstop whose name is not Troy Tulowitzki.

Washington Nationals' prospect Tyler Moore made the first start of his career in left field on Monday. He previously played first base exclusively.

Moore possesses an extremely powerful bat, mashing 68 home runs since the 2010 season.

He's hit 31 home runs in each of the past two seasons and is off to a hot start thus far. In 17 games (62 at-bats), Moore has six home runs, 16 RBI and a line of .290/.357/.613.

The Atlanta Braves won a close game in Arizona on Saturday, beating the Diamondbacks 3-2 to hand the D-backs their fifth straight loss. Tommy Hanson, the ace of the Braves staff, pitched seven strong innings and allowed just one run en route to picking up his second win of the season.

Maybe allowing Cliff Lee to go 10 shutout on innings wasn't such a good idea after all.

Just three days after his incredible performance against the Giants (which the Phillies still lost), Lee has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained left oblique muscle.

There's no doubt about it.  The 2012 Philadelphia Phillies are off to a dreadful start at the plate.  If it wasn't for a terrific pitching staff, there would be no way this team is at .500 after 14 games.  What's more of a surprise is how fans seem "up in arms" about their sticks as if they haven't seen anything like this before.  That's far from the truth.