Fan News

The added wild card will make the playoff run even more chaotic in 2012, with 18 teams currently within five games of a playoff spot. As we move through August, the contenders will separate themselves from the pretenders, and the playoff picture will begin to shape up.

Here are three teams who will show their true colors and drop out of the playoff race early:

Arizona Diamondbacks

According to Andrew Baggerly of CSN Bay Area, Pablo Sandoval will return to the San Francisco Giants' infield sometime in the middle of next week.

Bruce Bochy said trainers tell him Pablo Sandoval is a week away from activation. He's eligible Thursday.

Los Angeles Angels super-rookie Mike Trout is officially 21 years old on Tuesday, meaning he can go out and grab a celebratory beer if he feels so inclined (quick, somebody ask him if he's going to do that).

The St. Louis Cardinals are going to have a lot of personnel decisions facing them this offseason.

Some players are unfortunately going to have to be let go, as there won’t be enough money to go around.

From Lance Berkman to Tyler Greene, the Cardinals need to move on and let some other players get a chance to succeed.

Let’s take a look at three players the Cardinals shouldn’t re-sign for the 2013 season.

With the fantasy-trade deadlines coming up this week or next (I have four red-letter dates this Friday), it's time for owners to make one last pitch for baseball's elite categorical contributors.

AccuScore, a company that specializes in thorough game simulations, has made a few on-the-fly revisions to its seasonal projections.

With CC Sabathia as the ace, Hideki Kuroda as a strong No. 2 and Andy Pettitte set to come back in September, do the New York Yankees have a starting rotation good enough to make it to the World Series?

Are the Yankees too dependent on Pettitte's comeback? If he doesn't return, is Freddy Garcia a suitable replacement? Should general manager Brian Cashman have traded for a starting pitcher at the July 31 trade deadline?

The Seattle Mariners' recent seven-game winning streak may be over, but it sure was nice to enjoy a week's worth of winning baseball in an otherwise disappointing season.

The biggest question now is whether some of the encouraging signs found within this stretch will have any long-lasting meaning.  Over the course of this week and next, I hope to tackle a few of these questions in search of answers.

Out with the old, and in with the new—that is what the future holds for the San Diego Padres.

After months of waiting, the sale of the Padres to a group headed by former Los Angeles Dodgers President and CEO Peter O'Malley has been completed and will head for a vote by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and the other 29 owners to approve and finalize the transaction.

The vote is scheduled to take place on Aug. 16 at the owners' meeting in Denver.

It was another pretty incredible night for premier pitchers in the American League.

In fact, it was a Justin-credible night for the Detroit Tigers.

Justin Verlander struck out 14 batters in a 132-pitch, eight inning effort against the New York Yankees on Monday night, while Jered Weaver notched his major league-best 15th win with a four-hit complete game masterpiece over the Oakland A's.

One doesn't tend to think of the rivalry between the Los Angeles Angels and the Los Angeles Dodgers as being one of the great rivalries in baseball. It's certainly not Red Sox-Yankees, nor does it come close to Dodgers-Giants.

Among interleague rivalries, Angels-Dodgers isn't even close to Mets-Yankees or Cubs-White Sox. It's a territorial rivalry, to be sure, but there's not a whole lot of bad blood between the two teams themselves. 

Instead, what exists between the Angels and Dodgers is more like indifference.