In this morning's paper, six games into the season, the order of the six National League Central division teams was listed as the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cincinnati Reds, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Cubs, and the Houston Astros.
That looks like the season-end order to me.
With an offense led by Albert Pujols and a sturdy rotation, the Cardinals figure to top the National League Central again. The main question is how far they will get in the post-season.
The next three teams are now tied at .500. But some .500 scores are more equal than others.
Of the three, the Cincinnati Reds are coming up the fastest. In their first two series, they lost to the Cardinals and defeated the Cubs, suggesting an intermediate position.
They have deployed some promising relatively new pitchers, Johnny Cueto, whose first full season was 2008, and Homer Bailey, whose first full season was 2009. Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo are solid, longer-term standbys.
Milwaukee is another mid-caliber team, one that may, in fact, edge out Cincinnati for second place. The Brewers hit better than the Reds, although their pitching isn't as consistent.
On the other hand, the Pirates were lucky for at least one game so far. So they're probably the weakest of the three currently middling teams.
The Cubs and the Astros figure to be the weakest teams.They are both stuffed with capable, but aging players, who will probably wear less and less well as the season goes on.
We're not talking about "ageless" players like the New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, or Mariano Riviera in either case.
Of the two, the Cubs have the better chance of edging out the Pirates for fourth place. Their older players are a bit more renowned, as a group, than those of the Astros.They'll go somewhere this season if they can give it one last effort.
The Astros got off to a bad start that may be no accident.
Yes, this is the year that the Pirates figure to come out of the cellar, beating out at least one, and possibly two teams in order to shed the dubious honor.
Their problem is that they are too young, rather than too old. That problem lessens in coming years.
They have some fine new hitters in Garrett Jones and Andy McCutchen. Less renowned players have made solid offensive contributions so far, although it's unclear which ones will do so for the whole season.
The opening day rotation has more raw talent than we've seen in some time, although it is full of relatively new pitchers, even by Pirates' standards. In the group, only veteran Zach Duke has so far pitched with any consistency.
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