Beyond Golf — 06 May 2012 by Jim Street
MLB Power Rankings (Week 3)

GW’s MLB Power Ratings (Week 3):

1. Rangers (1): All Josh Hamilton needs to do is stay healthy and he can add a second AL Most Valuable Player Award to his collection. But keeping him healthy is a royal pain in the back.

2. Dodgers (2):  Last time the Bums started a season this well, in 1981, Tommy Lasorda was the manager and the franchise was worth a whole lot less than $2.15 billion.

3. Diamondbacks (5): Wade Miley (3-1, 1.29) has put smiley faces on all of the Diamondbacks so far this season, especially after one hit in 6 1/3 inning outing on Sunday.

4. Rockies (4): Ex-Rockies great Larry Walker has been unfairly neglected in the HOF voting because he played in the Mile High city, but if Todd Helton isn’t enshrined someday, something’s wrong,

5. Giants (6): Martin Bumgarner is off to the kind of start (4-1) the Giants expected from a certain right-hander with two Cy Young Awards on his resume.

6. Angels (3): Only three weeks into the season, the Angels are fishing for some answers for their slow start, but Mike Trout does not appear to be the solution.

7.  Athletics (7): Oakland had been getting straight A’s when leading after eight innings, but the nice streak ended at 10 games on Sunday in Baltimore.

8. Mariners (8): Ichiro continues to bat third in the lineup, but he also continues to drive in runs (9) like a leadoff hitter. This isn’t exactly what the Mariners wanted out of the No. 3 hole.

9. Padres (9): Pretty hard to score a bunch of runs when only one player is batting higher than .253. That deserves a big “Yikes!”

(Last Week’s rating in parenthesis)

Related Articles

Share

About Author

avatar
Jim Street

Jim’s 40-year sportswriting career started with the San Jose Mercury-News in 1970 and ended on a full-time basis on October 31, 2010 following a 10-year stint with MLB.com. He grew up in Dorris, Calif., several long drives from the nearest golf course. His first tee shot was a week before being inducted into the Army in 1968. Upon his return from Vietnam, where he was a war correspondent for the 9th Infantry Division, Jim took up golf semi-seriously while working for the Mercury-News and covered numerous tournaments, including the U.S. Open in 1982, when Tom Watson made the shot of his life on the 17th hole at Pebble Beach. Jim also covered several Bing Crosby Pro-Am tournaments, the women’s U.S. Open, and other golfing events in the San Francisco area. He has a 17-handicap, made his first and only hole-in-one on March 12, 2018 at Sand Point Country Club in Seattle and witnessed the first round Ken Griffey Jr. ever played – at Arizona State during Spring Training in 1990. Pebble Beach Golf Links, the Kapalua Plantation Course, Pinehurst No. 2, Spyglass Hill, Winged Foot, Torrey Pines, Medinah, Chambers Bay, North Berwick, Gleneagles and Castle Stuart in Scotland, and numerous gems in Hawaii are among the courses he has had the pleasure of playing. Hitting the ball down the middle of the fairway is not a strong part of Jim’s game, but he is known (in his own mind) as the best putter not on tour. Most of Jim’s writing career was spent covering Major League Baseball, a tenure that started with the Oakland Athletics, who won 101 games in 1971, and ended with the Seattle Mariners, who lost 101 games in 2010. Symmetry is a wonderful thing. He currently lives in Seattle and has an 8-year-old grandson, Andrew, who is the club's current junior champion at his home course (Oakmont CC) in Glendale, Calif.

(0) Readers Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.