Preview/Prediction

As we will do each week throughout the season, we will today take a look at Accuscore's playoff forecaster to see how the previous weeks games influenced the division's playoff race. The Nationals tremendously improved their chances to make the playoffs last week as the club went 4-2.

With this their projected playoff chances jumped from 10.5 percent to 23.8 percent. Disappointingly, their chance to win the division only grew 4 percent to 10.1 percent as the Phillies continue to play great baseball.

As the old saying goes: "You can't win the World Series in April, but you sure can lose it."

Sadly, this looks to be the case for the struggling Red Sox—possessors of one of the MLB's highest payrolls. Their struggles are due in large part to a fragile relationship between a developmentally-minded front office and a rabid fan base desperate for big-name players and marquee deals.

When done correctly, a developmentally-oriented system can lead to great results—enter the Red Sox of 2007, whose mixture of young talent and big-name stars led to World Series glory.

At least Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre was able to keep a few arms fresh in the bullpen Sunday afternoon.

Despite Clayton Kershaw's brilliant 2-0 win over the Colorado Rockies Sunday, Torre remains uncertain about his starters Tuesday and beyond, as the Dodgers open up a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks Monday.

The Red Sox are team still struggling to find their identity as they near the midpoint of May. 

As if the scrutiny from the media, fans, and upper management weren't enough, Joe Torre and his staff are faced with several important roster decisions in the days and weeks ahead.

As of May 7, the Dodgers find themselves with six players on the disabled list. Of those six players, Brad Ausmus' return will be the simplest to arrange, albeit that won't occur till the end of June.

Rafael Furcal hopes to rejoin the boys in blue in mid-to-late May, and at this point it seems as if shortstop Nick Green will be sent back down to Albuquerque.

Add Paul Maholm, Charlie Morton and Brian Burres to the list of opposing starting pitchers that Cubs hitters can't solve.

I don’t even think those guys have baseball cards.

The North Siders (13-16) dropped all three games to the Pittsburgh Pirates and now find themselves in fourth place in the National League Central.

Next up for the Cubs is a three-game set in Cincinnati, and they face the same starters they faced in the second series of the season—when they dropped two of three.

The Yankees have won four straight, but their arch rivals, the Red Sox, have also won four in a row to climb back over .500 for the first time since beating New York on Opening Night to go 1-0.

That was the only game Boston won in the three-game series, and the Sox went on a huge slide from there, hitting rock bottom on May 2, when they fell to 11-14 after being swept by the last-place Orioles.

But Terry Francona's bunch bounced back by scoring 36 runs in a four-game sweep of the Angels.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are approaching a pivotal stretch in the 2010 season. The next 11 out of 17 games the team will play will be against division opponents.

One of my pet peeves with baseball analysis is when commentators discuss a team that just missed the playoffs and attribute their missing out on losing games in September.

Games count just as much now as they do in September, though.