Rankings Reveal Power Players in Baseball: July 1-7

The Orioles solidified their grip on the AL East lead by winning series against the Mariners and A’s last week. And while a 19-8 loss on Saturday won’t do their actual run differential any favors, their BaseRuns run differential is the best in the American League by a pretty wide margin. They’ll have an opportunity to put some serious distance between themselves and the Yankees in a huge three-game series this weekend.

The Guardians bounced back after their series loss to the Royals a couple of weekends ago with a pair of series wins against the White Sox and Giants last week. They’re outperforming their BaseRuns record by the widest margin in baseball — a whopping nine wins — and their absolutely elite bullpen and fantastic clutch hitting are the big reasons why. One of those things seems more sustainable than the other, and both the Twins and Royals have done well to mostly keep pace in the AL Central. It’ll be interesting to see what kinds of upgrades Cleveland pursues at the trade deadline to help ward off those two challengers.

The Phillies have gone a respectable 5-4 since putting both Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber on the IL a week and a half ago, though they did lose their series against the Braves over the weekend. Much of that success is thanks to the other star in Philadelphia’s lineup, Trea Turner; he collected nine hits and four home runs last week. Thankfully, Schwarber should be coming off the IL this week, with Harper likely be right behind him.

After a brief hiccup against the Giants and Diamondbacks, the Dodgers got back to winning this past weekend, taking two of three from the Brewers at home. They’ll face a tough challenge with a three-game set in Philadelphia this week.

The red-hot Astros ran into the almost equally hot Twins this past weekend and their three-game set was filled with drama. Seven batters were hit by pitches in the series, forcing Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, and Carlos Correa to miss at least a game. Though none of the injuries seemed serious, there was certainly no love lost between these two teams. As for the games themselves, there was the slugfest on Friday in which Minnesota scored seven times in the ninth inning only to fall one run short of completing a comeback. And while Saturday’s game was pretty run-of-the-mill, the Twins completed the series victory with a walk-off win on Sunday in which Christian Vázquez knocked in all three runs, including the game-winning home run.

Facing a challenge from the Cardinals in their division, the Brewers didn’t wait around to make an upgrade to their patchwork rotation, trading for Aaron Civale last week. He should provide some league-average innings for Milwaukee. The Brewers could still use another starter or two to feel really good about their chances of hanging on to the division lead — Dallas Keuchel just isn’t the solution for a playoff-bound team — but it’s unclear how much more prospect capital they’re willing to part with.

The Red Sox continued their ascent up the standings with five wins last week, including two in New York in a huge series win over the struggling Yankees. As you’d expect, Rafael Devers has been the centerpiece of their surge, blasting seven home runs over the last two weeks, including two on Sunday night. He can’t do it all, though, and Boston again finds itself in position to be aggressive at the trade deadline to acquire some offensive help. Meanwhile, things have gotten pretty dire in the Bronx. The Yankees were swept by the Reds before falling to the Red Sox, and they couldn’t score more than four runs in any of their five losses last week. They did score 14 in their lone victory, led by a trio of home runs from Ben Rice, but this is a ballclub that’s sorely in need of some sort of spark. They’ve got a pretty big road trip this week to…