Opinion

NEW YORK — The tone in the afternoon was serious as the New York Mets discussed what they're going to do with a pitcher who was once their biggest asset but is now their biggest concern.

The tone Friday night was much lighter thanks to another Mets pitcher who is quickly becoming a valuable asset.

The race in the American League West is just tight enough to possibly be decided by one man.

Yu Darvish, come on down.

The Chicago White Sox's Chris Sale improved to 9-0 Thursday with a complete-game victory against the Houston Astros.

If that doesn't sum up the folly and intrigue of Bleacher Report's MLB Team of the Week, nothing does.

On the one hand, pitching wins are a silly, outmoded stat. On the other hand, 9-0 is 9-0.

Likewise, a week's worth of scalding production doesn't mean much in the long run. On the other hand, a hot week is a hot week.

On today's episode of "Things That Were Meant to Be," we have the Los Angeles Angels and Tim Lincecum.

A deal between the Angels and the two-time Cy Young Award winner had been in the air for a few days and is now complete. As reported by MLB Network's Jon Heyman, Lincecum is heading to Anaheim on a modest contract:

It's time for America's favorite game show, "Contender or Pretender."

OK, maybe it's not America's favorite game show, but we're still going to play, and you're invited to play along.

It works like this: We take a look at the teams with the best records in baseball and determine whether they're legitimate threats to make the playoffs (contenders) or if their early-season success is unsustainable (pretenders), which could be for a variety of reasons.

Under normal circumstances, a struggling pitcher with an ERA north of 5.00 wouldn't inspire feverish trade speculation.

But the Oakland Athletics' Sonny Gray isn't a normal struggling pitcher. And these aren't normal circumstances. 

What a difference a season can make.

Hype has such versatile usage in sports, like the English language’s version of Will Smith—a rapper, comedian and actor.

It’s employed to characterize a player, group of players, team, franchise, manager, executive and even owners. Basically, sports’ hype machine is applicable to any breathing organism in the world of sports.

The Los Angeles Dodgers definitely have problems in their bullpen, and they definitely need to seek out solutions.

What's not so definite is that Julio Urias is the one they're looking for.

It's only May, and we're already running out of adjectives to describe New York Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard.

Dominant, nasty, transcendent, filthy, scintillating—they've all been used. Once you've named a guy after a Norse god/Marvel superhero, where is there to go?

How about this: best pitcher in the ace-rich National League East.