• The Rays (19-7) have the best record in baseball:

• The Red Sox are 14-14 and dwelling in a distant fourth place

• The Orioles are on pace to win just 40 games for the season and have almost half their season's wins to date against Boston;

• The entire AL West, with its standings that look upside down ... The A's are in first place? The Rangers are playing .500 ball while the M's aren't? The Angels are 12-17???

• Speaking of upside-down West division standings, how about the NL? The Pads (17-10) and Giants (16-10) are front-running, while the Dodgers (11-15) bring up the rear;

• The Nats are 14-13 and just two games out of the NL East lead.

• Sure, the Reds are just 14-14, but they are in second place;

• The Braves are 12-15 ... and falling;

• Houston is 9-18 and already been outscored by an aggregate of 51 runs, one of only two teams to have under-achieved at that rate -- even the Orioles are "only" minus-47 in the same number of games played.

People thought their offense is mediocre and it certainly shows.

While Boston's offense has been underperforming, it still ranks 4th in the league. It's their 11th ranked pitching that is pulling them down.

When this team slumps, it will be ugly....

But the good young pitching, and the depth of pitching in reserve, might help the Jays to avoid any 9-game losing streaks this season.  Last year, the pitching (after Halladay and Romero) was pretty ugly for much of the season.  This season's depth is very different.  If one pitcher tanks, there are lots of good options waiting in the wings.  The real question mark is the offense.  But if we see improvements from Snider and Lind and Overbay, it could offset the inevitable declines from Gonzalez and Wells.  And there is Wallace waiting in the wings if Overbay never gets it together.

I didn't foresee any of the surprises in the other divisions, but the AL East is going pretty much how I expected (and think I wrote here), though I am surprised by the Jays looking like a +500 club.

Snyder looks completely different from a week ago, if he has actually evolved into being closer to the hitter we all thought he'd be, than our lineup becomes significantly stronger (and able to withstand an injury to another bat). 

The biggest positive has been the starting pitching though, and if this can continue than the future is pretty bright.  But things can turn quickly... I hope this never happens of course but wouldn't be too surprised if 2-3 months from now, a combination of injuries, hitters adapting to seeing pitchers more often, tired pitching arms etc balloons the collective era and quality starts become rare instead of the current norm.

I also hope that the current hot hitting doesn't disappear like it did last year after the strong start.  I felt that perhaps teams were adapting to Cito's well-known approach (stick with the pitch you went up looking for)..... that doesn't explain why the Jays are hitting again now, but anyways hopefully a major drop-off doesn't occur like last year.

The nice thing is that even with the inevitable bumps in the road, we can look forward to the future promotions of Wallace, Drabek, Stewart, JPA and others... we couldn't say that last year...

I know many people tend to believe the Jays have been "just hot" so far, but when you go up and down the roster, you likely see more underachievers than overachievers so far.

It's hard to believe that this is just them being "hot", when many if not most of them have been pretty "cold" overall so far.

To wit:

HOT

• Wells: 110ab, 1.033ops
• Gonzo: 115ab, .928ops
• Romero: 42.0ip, 3.00era
• Cecil: 20.2ip, 2.61era
• Gregg: 13.0ip, 0.69era
• Camp: 15.0ip, 2.40era

AS EXPECTED-ISH

• Bautista: 108ab, .790ops
• Lewis: 66ab, .783ops
• Buck: 80ab, .780ops
• McCoy: 34ab, .639ops
• JMac: 35ab, .629ops
• Molina: 24ab, .546ops
• Ruiz: 21ab, .333ops
• Marcum: 40.1ip, 3.12era
• Eveland: 28.1ip, 4.76era
• Roenicke: 3.0ip, 0.00era
• Lewis: 5.1ip, 5.06era

COLD AND/OR INJURED

• Lind: 111ab, .780ops
• Hill: 59ab, .733ops
• Snider: 87ab, .707ops
• EE: 32ab, .677ops
• Overbay: 98ab, .616ops
• Morrow: 33.1ip, 5.40era
• Tallet: 30.1ip, 6.11era
• Rzepczynski: 0.0ip, 0.00era
• Downs: 12.2ip, 4.26era
• Janssen: 11.0ip, 6.55era
• Frasor: 11.0ip, 7.36era
• Accardo: 6.2ip, 8.10era

I guess I could see some people wanting to push Bautista and Marcum up into the "HOT" category, but i'm not sure they're overachieving their own precedents by a large degree, considering the small sample.

You gotta think that when Wells/Gonzo slow down, at least couple of Hill/Lind/Snidey/Overvay/EE will be able to pick up the slack.

And while Romero and Cecil have been hot (although hey, maybe they're just good), you have to think that getting Tallet and Eveland permanently out of the SP picture with Cecil/Rzep in there is a good reason to hope for improvement in the SP to make up for any cooling from the young lefties.

and,of course, I think we all agree that our bullpen is likely to improve over what it's given us.

When you look at the numbers, it's hard to explain the Jays' solid start as a "hot streak" because really, for the most part, they haven't been "hot".

Baseball America has a story, for subscribers, about the best and worst teams when it comes to promotions for 2010.  The Jays didn't fare too well.

The team handed out four A's this year, with the Reds receiving an A+ for both the volume (89) and creativity of their promotions. Other A's went to the Astros, Mariners and Pirates.

At the bottom of the class were the Blue Jays and Red Sox, though it would seem for very different reasons.

The Jays, on the other hand, have struggled with attendance for a decade, so having just 12 promotions scheduled for 2010 doesn't make a lot of sense. The promotions also don't show much creativity, with the best probably being a Dave Stieb bobblehead giveaway. The researchers gave the Jays an F-, writing, "The chilling air of Canada froze the Jays quantity, quality and creativity."

It's hard to believe that this is just them being "hot", when many if not most of them have been pretty "cold" overall so far.

Just last season, the team was in first place after 46 games. It's a loooooong season.

I'm sure others have come up with estimates, but one of my main concerns for the Jays is that their starters may not be able to last the whole year even if they don't get injured. Counting the minors in 2009, Morrow ptiched about 120 innings, Eveland 170, Marcum 15 in 2009 and 160 the year before, Romero 180, Cecil 140. Tallet threw 150 last year, so in my view is likely to be pushed into the rotation again later this year even without injury. There are lots of arms, but who takes the innings in September if the Jays shut down a few of the young guys for the year? Most of the candidates are also young and racking up innings in the minors right now.

Given this, I don't think having a few guys ending up in the pen during the year would be the worst thing - unless this team is still contending in August, the organization should be limiting innings for several guys. Either you are building for the future, or you aren't.

Also, go Dana Eveland, more walks than strikeouts, ERA under 4.00. The Jays are a little bit more surprising every day - it might not be the hard part of the schedule, but like many fans, I assumed the Jays would struggle to beat most teams. 5 game winning streak is the best in baseball right now (of course, the three-way tie for second best at 4 games in a row are all in the division, sigh).

It's odd that it feels this good to be going into a weekend series with Marcum, Cecil and Romero slated to be toeing the rubber.  And Danks behind us and a win in the books.

• RAYS:  .772ops, .910ops/risp, 6.00r/g
• JAYS: .770ops, .732ops/risp, 4.73r/g

• RAYS: .654oops, .558ops/risp, 3.04ra/g
• JAYS: .679oops, .770oops/risp, 4.17ra/g

One of those teams seems to be due for a course correction, and maybe surprisingly, it ain't the Jays.

... it's totally possible that the schedule has inflated the Jays' results. Their winning series so far this year come against: BAL, TEX, KC, OAK, CLE. Not exactly a panoply of stiff opposition there. By contrast, their losing series: CWS (tie), LAA (a sweep, no less), TB, BOS.

Hang on Viktor ... you might want to back off your generalizations a bit.

TEX and OAK are tied for first place, several steps ahead of their division rivals LAA.  BAL, KC and CLE are down, true, but two of the five series wins so far ARE against division leaders (of admittedly the weakest division in MLB). TB is off to a great start, but BOS is in fourth while CWS is in (again admittedly, a weak) third.

The Jays' schedule has been perhaps just a notch below average, but not nearly as negatively as the picture you paint.

Third division: Everybody else except Royals

AO, the people of Charm City (Baltimore) thank you for you generosity.

Buster Olney weighs in on the Blue Jays today:

The latest example of why realignment needs to happen: The 2010 Toronto Blue Jays. The interest in the franchise is withering, and with the Rays and Yankees crushing opponents, it's hard to imagine folks in Toronto will look at the Jays as a serious contender at any time this season. That's too bad, because the Jays have gotten off to a good start, and certainly would be good enough to be the front-runner in the AL West; if only there was a different alignment of teams, the Blue Jays -- who have the ninth-best starting pitching ERA in the majors -- would be looked at as a playoff candidate.