One weekend down .... 155+ games to go. What's caught your eye?

The Orioles, Royals and Dodgers, respectively, are each alone in first place.

Those Royals took a series from the Angels. The Rangers swept the Red Sox. Those same Rangers are "on pace" to hit no less than 594  home runs this season. Like the Red Sox, the Rays and Brewers -- all popular pre-season picks to make the post-season -- are winless. (So are the Astros, but nobody was picking them, right?)

Howie Kendrick is tied for the MLB lead in home runs, along with Rangers Ian Kinsler and Nelson Cruz and ex-Ranger Mark Teixeira. All are "on pace" to slam 162 bombs in 2011.

So what else has caught YOUR attention?

The party is over. If you'll all just grab your stuff and leave, there won't be any hassle. The party's been closed, it's – the party is over with. Grab your stuff and go, and nobody goes to jail.

Everywhere else other than Baseball North, the big story in baseball has been dominated by one certain José Alberto Pujols Alcántara, better known as Albert Pujols.  A negotiating deadline set by Pujols for contract talks with the St. Louis Cardinals came and went this week without a new deal.  If Pujols sticks to his word, he will not negotiate during the 2011 season and become a free agent. 

Albert Pujols' game face can be seen as he stares down his bat during batting practice at the Dome June 24.

Well, the original trade thread filled up faster than the Skydome on a Tuesday in August. Wait...

Anyway, here's a new one for your AA venerating pleasure.

This isn't a trivia question; it's just something I've wondered about. Is it possible to select two baseball teams such that nobody on Team A was ever teammates with anybody on Team B? Were there any such pairs of teams in 2010? (I don't know if we should count players who were teammates in the minors or not.) I leave it as an exercise for the reader.

What else is going on that we want to talk about?

It’s 9:00 on a Saturday evening. Do you know which team Justin Upton plays for?

So Shawn Hill has been released, Uggla was traded for a LH reliever and a guy who has had 3 good years but still has a lifetime OPS+ of 90. Ken Rosenthal is reporting the Jays have acquired Rajai Davis for Trystan Magnuson and Dan Farquhar.  What else is going on?

Bob Elliot has posted a helpful article detailing the over 20 names that the Jays have already or will be interviewing to be the team’s manager in 2011.

Here's an all-purpose thread for day 1 of the Phil Cuzzi-free 2010 Division Series.

Cito Gaston was in a no-win situation with JP Arencibia yesterday. Meanwhile, on Wednesday Brian Tallet went to bat for a Blue Jays fan.

It's been a couple of years since I examined how the rotation was managed...

The All-Star teams that get to play, that everyone remembers, get picked at the beginning of July when there's an awful lot of baseball yet to be played. Let's do this thing right!

It's time once more for me to pick up, with failing hands, the torch first carried by the great Dave Till....

Much of the talk this year has focused on Jose Bautista, and for good reason - he recently broke the Jays' franchise record for home runs in a season and will likely soon become the first Blue Jay to ever hit 50. In the Year of the Pitcher, he leads the majors in home runs by a whopping ten over Albert Pujols, and his .998 OPS ranks 4th in the bigs. This incredible power surge seemingly came out of nowhere, and has prompted numerous discussions about What To Do With Jose Bautista.

For the last couple years, Adam Lind and Aaron Hill have been inextricably linked in conversation about the Jays. It isn't hard to see why; aside from profile similarities (they were both drafted out of college, they're about a year apart in age), they were the offensive leaders on the team last year, belting 35 and 36 homers respectively (no other Jay had more than 19), and driving in 114 and 108 (Barajas was next with 71). And, of course, this year, both have tanked while the rest of the team has hit very well (every starter has an OPS+ over 100 - Hill and Lind are at 85 and 90).

With all these similarities, I'm surprised we haven't started calling them by a dumb hybrid name. Maybe Aram Lill just doesn't have the same ring as, for example, Freed Johnalanotto.