Week Twelve
by Asher B. Chancey, BaseballEvolution.com
June 25, 2007

I currently have three American League teams – the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Boston Red Sox, and the Detroit Tigers – ranked as my top three teams in major league baseball. For whatever reason, the American League features the most complete teams in baseball, and is also dominating the National League in interleague play to the tune of a combined record of 22 games over .500.

Meanwhile, the sweating over the New York Yankees is over for now. After running off a semi-impressive start to June against the Red Sox, White Sox, Pirates, D’Backs, and Mets, the Yankees got their hats handed to them this week by the Rockies and Giants. The Yankees are now 11.5 games behind the Red Sox, and their pitching does not look improved at all. Humorously, their lone win this week came with Kei Igawa on the mound, and he couldn’t even get through the fifth inning.

The Texas Rangers evidently took offense to the fact that they are now ranked 30th in our Power Rankings, and promptly went 4-2 for their first winning week of the season – it looks like losing Mark Teixeira, one of the more vocal critics of new manager Ron Washington, to injury may have been just what the Rangers needed to start winning. Nevertheless, the Rangers will have to keep it up if they want to climb out of the cellar.

In reality, at this point the Chicago White Sox might be playing the worst baseball in the majors. You don’t have to go back very far to find a team with as low an on-base percentage as the White Sox have as a team (.307), but the fact that the last team to fare so poorly was the 2003 Detroit Tigers says a lot about how poorly the White Sox hitters have done this season. It simply makes no sense, because this is the exact same group of hitters who were third in the majors in runs scored last season, and now suddenly it is as if someone suddenly flipped a switch and turned off their bats.

Speaking of abominable hitting, the Atlanta Braves managed to score only ten runs this week, with a shocking nine of them coming on Monday against the Red Sox. For those scoring at home, this means the Braves got shut out four times in five games against the Red Sox and Tigers. The only run the Braves managed in that streak was on a homerun by Chipper Jones, shortly after being brow-beaten back into the lineup by John Smoltz after taking a game off because of a gimpy groin. On the one hand, Jones can now look at Smoltz and say “Don’t talk trash about me, I’m the best player on the team.” On the other hand, Smoltz can look right back at Chipper and say, “Yeah, that was my point.” Either way, Smoltz and Jones aren’t the problems on this team. Guys who were playing well when the team was winning are playing very poorly now – this means you, Kelly Johnson, Andruw Jones, Jeff Francoeur, and Brian McCann.

In other “how did this happen” news, the D’Backs wake up this Monday morning to find themselves alone in first place atop the NL West, even despite Randy Johnson’s trip to the DL. Suffice to say, the D’Backs have fared far better against the AL, even despite being swept by the Yankees, than their divisional counterparts. This week’s four game set at home against the Dodgers may let us know if the D’Backs are for real. Of course, a series split and we will have learned nothing.

Last but not least, I would just like to point out – here come the Twins. Again. The Cleveland Indians had better get their pitchers under control, and had better figure out what’s eating Travis Hafner, or second place will be a distant memory.

Without further ado, here are the Week Twelve Power Rankings. Enjoy and, as always, feel free to comment.

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Questions? Concerns? Comments? Asher lives in Philadelphia, PA, and can be reached at asher@baseballevolution.com.