Opinion

Kyle Hendricks is like the frosting on a birthday cake. Peanut butter on toast. Hot fudge on a sundae.

The Chicago Cub is the best starting pitcher on MLB's top team, which stood 78-45 through Sunday's action.

Let's get this out of the way: Yes, there are only six weeks left in the 2016 MLB season. Kind of snuck up on you, didn't it?

That means, among other things, we can get serious about the various awards races.

A lot will be decided in the final month-and-a-half. Hot streaks, cold spells and injuries will inevitably shift the picture. And some races—like the American League Cy Young Award—are impossibly wide open.

Even with Adrian Gonzalez's awesomeness meter at less than 100 percent for most of the season, the Los Angeles Dodgers haven't had much trouble hitting in 2016.

Just imagine what they can do now that his meter is far past 100 percent.

One punch

Flashpoints arrive frequently and violently as young Texas second baseman Rougned Odor spars his way through the early stages of a career that teammate Elvis Andrus swears will lead him one day straight into the Hall of Fame. Baseball or boxing Hall of Fame, Andrus doesn't specify. For now, it's probably safer that way.

Here come the champs.

Make it eight straight for the Kansas City Royals, who beat the Minnesota Twins 2-1 on Sunday to continue their winning ways and creep closer in the American League wild-card scramble.

Just when the Los Angeles Dodgers have finally caught up with the San Francisco Giants, their starting pitching has gone and quit on them.

Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill, that's your cue to come back and fix everything.

The days Rick Porcello doesn't start for the Boston Red Sox, they're barely a .500 team.

The third semester of the 2016 regular season has come to an end, and report cards are heading home to each of baseball's 30 teams. Some managers and front office executives will try to get into work early to intercept the mail, while others will simply lean back and wait for a trip to their favorite restaurant as a reward for a job well done. 

On Aug. 12, Alex Rodriguez played his final game as a member of the New York Yankees and quite possibly his final game in the major leagues.

That doesn't qualify him for Bleacher Report's MLB Team of the Week, but we'd be remiss if we didn't at least give one of the greatest, most polarizing players of this or any generation a shout-out.

Because the baseball gods decree that every season must feature an overly complicated debate about the "V" in "MVP," 2016 has given us the curious case of Kris Bryant.

There's no need to be curious about Bryant's stardom. It's legit. The Chicago Cubs picked him No. 2 overall in 2013, and all he's done since then is emerge as a No. 1 prospect and last year's National League Rookie of the Year. For his next act, he has eyes on the NL Most Valuable Player Award.