Power Rankings: Fascinating week sends teams shuffling

The MLB.com Power Rankings is a very serious enterprise in which we track which teams are rising (the Mariners, the Twins) and which teams are falling (the Padres, the Angels) with focus and seriousness of purpose. But sometimes it’s important to remember that what matters the most is ... hugs. Thus, today, No. 1 in the Power Rankings in our hearts is Mudonna T. Pig, a mascot for the St. Paul Saints, set a world record for hugs by a mascot by hugging 90 people in 60 seconds. Mudonna is not No. 1 in the actual Power Rankings: That would be the Braves. But if the Braves are going to hang onto that spot next week, they’re going to need to hug more people.

It was a fascinating week, punctuated by a stirring series between two teams in our top four ... two teams that look like they are going to be that high for a while. These rankings, as always, are compiled from rankings from MLB.com contributors whose names you can find at the bottom of this (and every) piece, but the words are mine. If you dislike the rankings, yell at all of us. But if you dislike the words, feel free to yell at me.

1) Braves (previously: 1).
Season high: 1 | Season low: 3
For all the good vibes going on with the Braves right now, it’s worth noting that Austin Riley, like fellow All-Star Ronald Acuña Jr., hasn’t been off to the most blistering start. He’s only hitting .234 with an alarmingly low two homers for a guy with consistent pure power. Sunday might be the game that gets him going, though. He was 0-for-8 in the AL’s best team vs. NL’s best team grudge match over the weekend heading into Sunday, but he had two hits, one of them a huge one: A 10th-inning walk-off single that wrapped up the series for the Braves. The Braves are 19-7 without having either Riley or Acuña doing much. Wait until they do. (And they will.)

2) Orioles (previously: 3).
Season high: 2 | Season low: 5
For all the offseason questions about whether or not the Orioles really helped their bullpen all that much by bringing in Craig Kimbrel, he had been terrific for the first month of the season. But that may have collapsed in a heap with two miserable outings, and two blown saves, on Friday and Sunday against the A’s. The worrisome part was all the walks: Three on Friday and a leadoff walk on Sunday that set up the Kyle McCann homer that would end up beating them. It wasn’t the most fun week for the Orioles, all told, with Jackson Holliday being sent down and, uh, losing two of three at home to the A’s.

3) Dodgers (previously: 6).
Season high: 1 | Season low: 6
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, while discussing Shohei Ohtani’s personal-record 119.2 mph exit velocity RBI single off Yusei Kikuchi on Saturday, pointed out something that’s often overlooked about Ohtani: For all his incredible physical gifts, he’s just as good at controlling the strike zone. Before lacing that single, Ohtani took two tough pitches just low in the zone, pitches that a lot of hitters would have gone after. That set him to strike on a pitch that was likely one he could hit. “It’s incredibly amazing,” Roberts said. “You earn pitches. You earn pitches in the strike zone. In that at-bat, he took some balls down below, got a pitch in his nitro zone and was able to hit it hard.” The guy can do everything.

4) Guardians (previously: 4).
Season high: 4 | Season low: 21
The Guardians lost two out of three against the Braves, and while there is no category on the MLB.com standings page for “moral victories,” the upstart Guardians have to feel good about how they measure up with the top team in baseball. They were one eighth-inning Braves comeback away from winning the series on the road. It’s clear that they measure up. It’ll be fascinating to see if they can bury the Astros: They’ve got three in Houston, and there may be no better time to catch Houston. They need every win they can get right now, because it sure looks like the Twins have woken up; there are four teams in this division currently over .500.

5) Yankees (previously: 2).
Season high: 2 | Season low: 7
The Yankees have been such a pleasant surprise so far -- at least compared to what all the doomsayers were saying about them heading into the season -- that we’ve forgotten what they look like when Aaron Judge is rolling (and isn’t the only guy on the team who can hit, which we have seen in the past as well). He homered both Saturday and Sunday against the Brewers, driving in five runs, and, perhaps not coincidentally, the Yankees scored a combined 30 runs in those two games.

6) Brewers (previously: 5).
Season high: 5 | Season low: 19
It is downright bizarre to see the Brewers, a team that has had a pitching staff carry its limp offense for several years now, in first place despite the 21st-best ERA in baseball. The Yankees made a serious dent in that over the weekend, scoring 36 runs in three games. Their weekend series coming up against the Cubs is a fascinating one: The two teams are at the top of the NL Central and, of course, it’s their first opportunity to face the manager who almost took them to the World Series. (The real fireworks will be when the Cubs come to Milwaukee at the end of May.)

7) Phillies (previously: 7).
Season high: 4 | Season low: 8
If you are looking for a pivot moment for the Phillies over the last two years -- going from a team that hadn’t won a postseason series since 2010 to a team that has won five in two seasons -- I might humbly submit it was the night Phillies fans gave Alec Bohm a standing ovation the same week he’d made a derogatory comment about them. It was a warm side of Phillies fans we don’t often see; it would be repeated a year later with Trea Turner and it ended up getting Bohm going. And look where he is now: Coming into Sunday, over an 11-game hit streak, he was putting up .512/.553/.907 with 11 extra-base hits and 16 RBIs.

8) Cubs (previously: 9).
Season high: 8 | Season low: 12
Craig Counsell is earning his money right now. The Cubs are in a brutal stretch of 16 games in 16 days without Cody Bellinger, Seiya Suzuki and a whole swath of their rotation. He looked almost relieved to get to use position players to pitch in a 17-0 wipeout at the hands of the Red Sox on Saturday. They’ve got tons of guys returning soon, including Justin Steele. Can they keep their heads above water until then?

9) Royals (previously: 8).
Season high: 6 | Season low: 24
You can make an argument that the Royals' record should actually be better than it is: They’ve got the third-best rotation ERA and 11th-best bullpen in the Majors, and they’ve arguably got two All-Star Game starters right now in Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez. The problem is that they have a ton of dead spots in their lineup right now, particularly in the outfield, which has basically been a zero everywhere.

10) Mariners (previously: 19).
Season high: 10 | Season low: 21
The Mariners are perpetually one hot streak away from fulfilling every expectation and hope their fans have for them, and we saw that this week: Series wins over the two teams that made the World Series last year zoomed them up our Power Rankings and, in a side effect that’s nearly as important as zooming up the Power Rankings, now has them atop the AL West. It’s the pitching that’s doing it for them, as it often is: They gave up 13 runs in six games this week, which is an excellent way to win games, as it turns out.

11) Reds (previously: 13).
Season high: 11 | Season low: 15
Our Reds reporter Mark Sheldon had an excellent newsletter entry this week which put some real numbers to the torrid week that Elly De La Cruz just had. Elly is the sort of player who sometimes defies any ability to encapsulate his brilliance in numbers, but this week, the numbers did the trick. He slashed .400/.571/.750 on the homestand this week, made zero errors, walked four times in a game and covered 112 feet on a pop-up. He is doing everything right now. He’s probably fixing something broken in your house right now as we speak.

12) Rangers (previously: 11).
Season high: 4 | Season low: 12
It took Wyatt Langford longer than anyone expected to get his first MLB homer, but he did do it in the coolest possible way: Hitting an inside-the-parker, placing the ball in the exact right spot at Globe Life Field to pull it off. He’s the 14th player to do it this century. He looks like he’s starting to get going: Don’t be surprised if we see a few go over the fence over the next week or so.

13) Tigers (previously: 17).
Season high: 7 | Season low: 20
The Royals are still a half-game up on the Tigers in the AL Central, but you can’t help but think the Tigers made themselves a nice little statement by winning two of three in Detroit this weekend. They were both stirring victories: A seventh-inning comeback victory on Saturday and yet another dominant outing from Tarik Skubal on Sunday. Skubal’s face-melting hot streak continues: In his last 11 starts dating back to last year, he’s 8-0 with a 1.35 ERA.

14) Red Sox (previously: 14).
Season high: 14 | Season low: 22
Any young player known for his defense and speed, but with the worry that big league pitchers might knock the bat out of his hands, is going to get more patience sometimes from his team than his fans. But the Red Sox were very much rewarded this weekend with a breakout from Ceddanne Rafaela, who went 4-for-4 with seven RBIs on Saturday, including a bomb over the Green Monster. He has more than earned his spot in the lineup based on all the things he does without a bat in his hands, but as he comes around, his hitting may become less of a bonus and more of something the Red Sox can count on.

15) Twins (previously: 23).
Season high: 13 | Season low: 23
Welp, the Twins are awake. And it took, uh, slowly rotting meat to do it? Amid the Twins’ slow start, infielder Kyle Farmer, for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, put a packaged summer sausage on the clubhouse table. No one wanted to eat it, so hitting coach David Popkins, also for reasons that still aren’t entirely clear, put it by the dugout bat rack. It has sat there all week, occasionally being thrown (?) at players who just had a big hit ... and the Twins have yet to lose. The sausage, like the Twins, went to California. No matter what happens with this streak, let’s just make sure nobody ends up eating that thing ... gross.

16) Mets (previously: 10).
Season high: 10 | Season low: 25
The Mets were surely too low when they fell all the way to 25 in these rankings, and they were surely too high when they zoomed all the way up to 10. Sixteen does sound about right, smack in the middle. Mark Vientos’ walk-off homer on Sunday salvaged an otherwise rough week: They lost series to the Giants and the Cardinals, two teams under .500.

17) Blue Jays (previously: 12).
Season high: 8 | Season low: 19
It appears that Kevin Gausman has figured something out. After a miserable first three starts in which he went 0-2 with an 11.57 ERA, he has pulled it together for his last three, giving up just two earned runs in 18 2/3 innings, including his best start of the year to beat the Dodgers and end a five-game losing streak on Sunday.

18) Diamondbacks (previously: 15).
Season high: 10 | Season low: 18
It is too early to be worried about a talent like Corbin Carroll, obviously, but it should probably be noted that the reigning NL Rookie of the Year and generational talent for this franchise is hitting .189 with only three extra-base hits 29 games into the season.

19) Rays (previously: 16).
Season high: 9 | Season low: 19
Their blistering start last season seems very far away. There’s not much more you can say here other than “the White Sox just swept them,” but I could also note that they’re under .500 at the end of April for the first time since 2018.

20) Pirates (previously: 20).
Season high: 9 | Season low: 25
It took a comeback victory by the Mets over the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon to keep the Pirates from falling into a position they’ve been all too familiar with in recent years: Last place. You couldn’t possibly ask for an easier week of games: Three against the A’s and three against the Rockies. If the Pirates aren’t back over .500 by next Sunday, it’s time to be concerned.

21) Padres (previously: 18).
Season high: 14 | Season low: 21
Since an impressive 10-day stretch where they won three straight series against the Cubs, Dodgers and Brewers, the Padres have slowly, and then quickly, started fading. They’ve lost their last three series and were blitzed by the Phillies at home over the weekend. That was on the heels of a brutal loss to Colorado on Thursday in which they blew a five-run lead in the eighth inning (or later) for the first time since 1977. Mike Shildt has earned many plaudits for sticking behind his team though this difficult stretch. Let’s see how he handles the next one ... because it looks like there might be another one coming soon. (This one isn’t even over yet.)

22) Giants (previously: 22)
Season high: 17 | Season low: 23
You know that old manager chestnut, that “give me nine guys like that guy, I’ll beat everybody in the league?” Patrick Bailey is currently that guy for the Giants, a player whose bat has caught up with (or even surpassed) his defensive brilliance. The problem is that Giants do not, in fact, have nine of him.

23) Cardinals (previously: 24).
Season high: 18 | Season low: 24
The Cardinals were this close to getting back to .500 on Sunday, getting one strike away from sweeping the Mets before Harrison Bader singled to tie the game and Mark Vientos homered to win it. That shouldn’t distract from the fact that the Cardinals are starting to get back on track a little: They went 4-2 on the week against the D-backs and Mets, with the schedule easing up, with three against the Tigers and three at home against the White Sox. They’re still in last place in the NL Central, but this last place feels a little bit different, so far anyway, than last year’s last place.

24) Astros (previously: 21).
Season high: 6 | Season low: 23
So, the Astros are off to their worst start since they were in the early stages of constructing their current powerhouse dynasty: They’re in last place and one of only four teams in baseball who haven’t reached double digits in wins. But you know who’s not worried? FanGraphs’ Playoff Odds, which gives them better odds (47 percent) at making the postseason than half the teams in baseball, including the Rangers, Royals, Rays and Blue Jays.

25) Nationals (previously: 26).
Season high: 25 | Season low: 27
Patrick Corbin was a major factor in helping the Nats win their 2019 World Series title, and for that reason alone, the team can’t regret signing him to a six-year, $140 million deal that runs out at the end of 2024. But you can’t get around the fact that things have not gone well since that first, magical season. Corbin hasn’t had a full-season ERA lower than 5.20 since, he has led the league in losses three seasons running and early in 2024 he’s 0-3 with a 6.82 ERA.

26) Angels (previously: 25).
Season high: 24 | Season low: 26
We are in the fifth year of Anthony Rendon’s seven-year, $245 million contract, and he has 22 home runs as an Angel. He has actually played fewer games at third base for the franchise than, say, David Freese did in 2014-15. Now Rendon is on the injured list again, this time with a hamstring tear that is expected to keep him out of action for an extended period of time.

27) A’s (previously: 27).
Season high: 27 | Season low: 30
Shea Langeliers is one of those young prospects the A’s got in trade that they’re ostensibly supposed to be building around, which is why it has been discouraging to see his struggles this year, with a .165 average. So the A’s had to be pleased with Langeliers’ big night on Friday, when he homered and knocked in the winning run in extra innings to beat the Orioles in Baltimore. Despite his batting average issues, he is leading this team with six homers.

28) Rockies (previously: 29).
Season high: 28 | Season low: 29
After his fourth-place finish in Rookie of the Year voting last year, Nolan Jones looked like the sort of hitter the Rockies could potentially build around. But his miserable start has now lasted long enough that you have to be a little worried: He’s hitting .170 with only one homer and has missed multiple games this week with back stiffness.

29) Marlins (previously: 28).
Season high: 23 | Season low: 29
When you start the season 1-11, you don’t want to add any more losing streaks like the one the Marlins are on; this is in danger of getting away from them, if it hasn’t already. Some good news, though: Luis Arraez, after a rough start, is back to normal: He’s hitting .351 over the last 20 games.

30) White Sox (previously: 30)
Season high: 28 | Season low: 30
After the terrific postseason he had for the National League-champion D-backs, it was surprising to see Tommy Pham still roster-less when the season began. The desperate-for-offense White Sox were the team to finally give him a shot. Sure looks like Pham is ready to make a difference again: He instantly looked the best player in the White Sox lineup as they won their first series of the weekend ... a sweep, no less.

Voters: Nathalie Alonso, Anthony Castrovince, Doug Gausepohl, Will Leitch, Travis Miller, Sweeny Murti, Arturo Pardavila, Mike Petriello, Manny Randhawa, Andrew Simon, David Venn.