May 22, 2013; Anaheim, CA, USA; Los Angeles Angels center fielder Mike Trout (27) tags second on his way to third after hitting a triple in the second inning against the Seattle Mariners at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

I remember listening to Tim Kurkjian one time on Baseball Tonight many years ago, and he told a story of a player who either needed only a double or single to get the fourth leg of the cycle in his upcoming at bat. The player got a base hit, reached the bag he needed to complete the cycle, but had an open opportunity to safely advance to the next base, but did not do so because that player wouldn’t have had the cycle. He said from then on, he was done with the cycle, and I believe that story influenced me to think about what the cycle was as well.

Michael Engel wrote about Mike Trout‘s most recent newsworthy offensive performance, which happened to be the cycle, and you can read about it here. Plenty of history, and plenty of good names behind the athletes that have scored a cycle for the record books, but I struggle to get on board with why a cycle is celebrated.

It appears to me that the feat of the cycle — the single, the double, the triple, and the home run — is celebrated because of the randomness of getting all four types of hits in box score being attained by the player. This is not to say that getting four hits at the major league level isn’t difficult. It is, and I mean, if anything should be celebrated about Mike Trout’s cycle it should be his 80 speed (“elite” speed in scouting terms) in getting his single and triple, and then taking this pitch out of the park just right of center field:

Looking at Trout’s face, it makes me think even he’s impressed with himself there.

I believe Trout’s night was impressive because he had four hits and ten total bases (in addition to the other qualities he exhibited that I mentioned). That’s doing work for your team. Hitting for the cycle is cool, but I believe it’s been hyped too much over the years. It makes me wonder how much people are talking about Jose Bautista‘s four hit night yesterday where he had ten total bases as well, but in the form of two homers and two singles. I can understand why you might be impressed more with Trout’s showing of speed, but I believe I’m just as impressed (maybe even a little more) with the night Joey Bats had.

I don’t expect the masses to fire up the blogs less when a cycle happens, but I hope they fire it up more when a hitter has a big night that doesn’t involve the cycle, because those should be celebrated, too.

Any success the Houston Astros have this season deserves celebration and after a mid-May win over the Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Jose Veras (left) and catcher Jason Castro (15) high-five. Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

This is an international appeal to fans for suggestions on what hobbies Houston Astros closer Jose Veras can take up while sitting around in the bullpen waiting for a save situation to arise.

Let’s help Jose out so he is not bored all summer. This is a serious problem. As we approach Memorial Day weekend poor Veras is sitting on eight saves for the season, roughly one a week. Mostly, though, he has nothing to do each day when his employer goes off to battle against other big league clubs that are superior.

Veras, 32, is a right-handed thrower from the Dominican Republlic who has a lifetime record of 19-19 and a career earned run average of 3.97 going into Thursday’s play. Those numbers could well remain static for the entire holiday weekend because the Astros might not be in another situation for days that require Veras’ services as a closer.

That’s because if your job is the closer for the Houston Astros there is rarely anything to save. Houston has the worst record in the American League and those close-game, late-inning survival opportunities just don’t come around very often for the Astros.

Veras is 6-foot-6 and weighs 240 pounds. Just a guess, but it seems unlikely that batters welcome the sight of his fastball flying at them. But Jose just doesn’t get that many chances to use that weapon. Prospects do not seem likely to improve for him and Houston all season long either.

He may be doomed to months of waiting by the phone like a teenaged girl who said, “Call me, maybe.” So what can Veras do to occupy himself as he waits for the periodic telephone calls from manager Bo Porter?

Here are some suggestions:

1) Warm up more often just so he doesn’t forget his throwing motion. So what if fans wonder what the heck Veras is doing tossing the ball in the bullpen in the fourth inning of a 0-0 game.

2) Fill out crossword puzzles. Keeps the mind active, if not the arm.

3) Answer fan mail and sign autographs for all of the kids who write to you–this is an especially efficient task since you won’t have to do it in the clubhouse or at home.

4) Come up with a top ten list besides this list that will get you on David Letterman.

5) Play chess with the bullpen coach.

6) Convince the scoreboard operator to play a different baseball movie on the big board every game so you can catch up on Hollywood baseball history.

7) Ask for a trade to any team except the Miami Marlins because you would be in the same situation there.

8) Out of gratefulness for such a job, repeat 100 times a game, “I am in the major leagues.”

9) Focus on how the lack of stress on your arm this season will extend the length of your career.

10) Join the Great Books Club and use down time in the bullpen to read “Moby Dick,” “War and Peace,” and the collected works of Shakespeare. That should keep you busy until the Fourth of July.

By then fans across America will surely have come through with additional suggestions to occupy you, at least through Labor Day.

At 7-2 Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Justin Masterson is emerging as the staff ace for a team that seems to be on the rise. Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

Given that the last time the Cleveland Indians won the World Series was 1948, Northeast Ohio baseball fans are starved for a winner. There have been stretches over the last 65 years when the Indians have been pretty darned good, only to lose in the World Series, so they haven’t been as futile as the Cubs. But they’re starting to move into the same ballpark, so to speak.

Sick of the same, Indians management spent the off-season spending. New manager Terry Francona was hired. New players were lured to Cleveland to take over the batting order. The guys controlling the purse strings loosened them and made an effort to remake the whole team and shed the loser image.

So far it is working. Since Francona presided at the helm when the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 (and 2007) World Series, one might be suspicious that he has used up his quota of baseball miracles, but the Indians were willing to take that chance. If Francona can bring a World Series crown to the shore of Lake Erie, becoming a two-team streak-buster, then the gates to the Hall of Fame should swing open for him.

Granted, it’s a little early for all of that, but the Indians surely do appear to be having more fun than they have had in about a decade and they are more entertaining to watch. Entering Wednesday’s play Cleveland was 26-18 and in first place in the American League Central Division. The Indians may not even be able to outlast the Detroit Tigers for the division crown, but they are playing good ball and could be a playoff team without capturing the division.

One recent game that illustrates the new-look Indians took place three days ago against the Seattle Mariners. Cleveland won, 6-4. Justin Masterson raised his record to 7-2 while striking out 11 batters and looked like one of the top hurlers in the AL. In addition, Cleveland and Masterson defeated Seattle ace Felix Hernandez.

The King is far more likely to pitch a shutout than to be driven out of a game before five innings are up, but Cleveland accomplished the task. After this game outfielder-turned-first baseman Nick Swisher said, “Things are rocking.” Whether Swisher’s subconscious was on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame situated in Cleveland or he was making a conscious quip, he was right.

Swisher was one of those off-season hires that the Indians made rich with a long-term contract. He spent the last four years with the Yankees, but as someone who attended Ohio State this was coming home. At the moment he is batting .274.

The Indians have been playing well as a team. They are not clobbering foes with killer bats, nor are they overpowering them with blistering fastballs. They have been solid. Leftfielder Michael Brantley is hitting .300 and rightfielder Ryan Raburn is hitting .299. Centerfielder Michael Bourn is back from injury and is hitting .314. Catcher Carlos Santana is batting .290. One player who has given the hitters a lift over the season’s first quarter is slugger Mark Reynolds. The designated hitter has ripped 12 home runs and driven in 37. Yeah, he still strikes out at an average of once a game, but in-between he has been mashing the ball.

Cleveland does not have a collection of household names in the rotation. Masterson is at the head of the class, but otherwise the rest of the crew is muddling through. Zach McAllister has a 2.65 earned run average, but Francona is still waiting for Ubaldo Jimeniz and Scott Kazmir to pull their acts together. Trevor Bauer, 22, is being eased into the rotation full-time. Closer Chris Perez is holding things together in the bullpen with his 16 saves.

The pieces are starting to jell and the Indians look promising. It’s premature to start thinking World Series, but it’s not crazy to say Cleveland has a good shot at a playoff spot.

New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera almost never makes a mistake and already has 17 saves this season. Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

The way the Major League baseball season has played out over the first seven weeks it is starting to shape up as one of those years where there is no dominant team and the distance between first place and last place can be covered by a napkin (except for the Houston Astros and the Miami Marlins).

No team is off to such a fast start that it looks as if it cannot be caught and most teams are not off to such a slow start that things look hopeless as the season approaches June.

Right now it seems as if the good teams’ front office executives are sitting around wondering why they can’t play well every day and the medicore teams’ front office executives are sitting around wondering who the one more player is they can obtain to lift them from a few games back in the standings into a playoff position.

If we didn’t know better we might think this was the National Football League where any given Sunday trumps any weekly preparation and no team is really ever out of it–case in point that teams have made the playoffs with 7-9 records. Exact analogy or not this baseball season feels a bit like that.

Going into Tuesday’s play a look at the American League East standings is a perfect example. The New York Yankees are 28-16 in first, the Boston Red Sox are 27-18 in second, the Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays are tied at 23-21 and the Toronto Blue Jays are in last at 18-26. Compared to March 31 the feeling would be that the standings are upside down.

The Yankees could have been buried by injuries, but deserve everyone’s admiration for their ability to cope and win while losing player after player. No one’s been better than Mariana Rivera, who has 17 saves and been nearly perfect after returning from a serious knee injury last year. The Red Sox were supposed to struggle fighting their way out of 2012′s last place. The Orioles and Rays were contenders and after off-season moves the Blue Jays were the division favorites. It now appears this will be an action-packed division all season.

In the Central Division, the Cleveland Indians’ off-season moves appear to be paying off royaly. The Kansas City Royals have improved, but not as much as they hoped, and the Detroit Tigers, picked as runaway winners of the division, are going to be good, but maybe not as good as planned. Seven games separate first from last.

The Texas Rangers–as they did last year before blowing it–are building an early lead in the standings. The Los Angeles Angels–as they did last year when they also spent big in the free-agent market–are falling way behind.

The distance between first, the Atlanta Braves, and fourth, the New York Mets, is just eight games in the National League East. The Washington Nationals, the consensus favorite, are kind of limping along, but by no means out of it.

Similarly, in the NL West, only seven games separates first and last. The Arizona Diamondbacks hold first and are playing better than expected. The Los Angeles Dodgers spent big, loaded up with talent, and are in last, but not so far out of it that one winning streak could catapult them into first. The defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants will do damage. Even the surprising San Diego Padres aren’t buried yet.

Over in the middle of the country, the St. Louis Cardinals, who never skipped a beat when Albert Pujols jumped to the Angels last year, keep trotting out wickedly impressive arms and have a game-and-a-half lead on the Cincinnati Reds, the division favorite. The Pittsburgh Pirates seem fortified for a post-.500 run for the first time in a generation. The Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers may be losers at the moment, but they are not patsies.

Only four teams in the majors are 10 or more teams out of first place. The Astros and Marlins are two of them, exactly where everyone expected them to be. The Blue Jays, at 10 back, and the Brewers at 10 1/2 back, are the only other teams where the arrow points to “Seriously worried” on the meter of optimism.

It is wise to save all sports memorabilia because it might make you rich someday. Here a display case filled with memorabilia in the third row rests at the spot Bob Feller normally occupied in the Progressive Field press box as seen during the game between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. The Cleveland chapter of the baseball writers association of America honored Feller by placing the shrine in memory of the Hall of Fame member who passed away at the age of 92 in 2010. Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

As someone who is both fascinated by baseball and history, my interest usually doubles when the topic is baseball history. Over the last month I have been following an auction, which concluded early Sunday morning with some astonishing purchases.

I may be interested in baseball and history and owning pieces of baseball history, but my budget is more in alignment with Baby Ruth candy bars than Babe Ruth baseball cards. So for the most part I am on the sidelines when anything of great value is made available to the bidding public. As it was by Robert Edwards Auctions during this stretch of time.

All I can tell you is that if you own anything that has to do with Babe Ruth that is the genuine article, an old card, a signed photograph or ball, any type of autograph, you should take as gentle  care of it than if you come into possession of the Hope diamond or a Van Gogh painting.

I used to think that my hobby was collecting sports memorabilia. And although I still have bunches of baseball cards, media guides obtained during the course of work as a sports writer, programs and yearbooks, it would be more accurate to classify my hobby as watching other people collect sports memorabilia. I own a bank account. They own banks. Compared to the people who were bidding for selected items I am playing Class D ball and they are in the majors.

For me, it was like going to Las Vegas and seeking out a $2 table. I made a few bids and they were topped so quickly that the rejection of my high bid was recorded faster than my bid, it seemed. I got emails that said sorry, but I had been outbid instantly.

Anyway, the auction closed around 5 a.m. Sunday and it was announced that more than $10 million worth of collectibles were sold. They weren’t all baseball items, but I’m estimating that baseball stuff constituted 85 of it. More than 1,800 items went out the door.

There was a Honus Wagner T-206 from the 1909-1911 baseball card set that is the most coveted of all cards and it sold for $340,000. I’m assuming it would have gone for much more if it had been in better condition.

The show stopper item was a card described as being only one of 10 known to be in existence produced by the Baltimore News American in 1914–a Babe Ruth rookie card. The selling price was $380,000. The better-known Mickey Mantle 1952 Topps rookie card sold for $230,000. A 1910 Shoeless Joe Jackson card went for $100,000. And a 1912 Boston Garter panel with four players on it, including Frank Chance and Fred Clarke, sold for $150,000. The auction house said it has handled just four Boston Garter cards ever.

See what I mean about this being the big leagues of collecting?

While the Baltimore card was referred to as Ruth rookie card it was issued before he reached the majors. There was also a card produced in 1916 by Ware’s Sporting Goods that was referred to as a rookie card that sold for $110,000. Put it this way, with either variety, you aren’t going to have doubles.

There were some other stunning sale prices. I watched a Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig signed baseball jump from $85,000 to $290,000 over the weekend. A single-signed Gehrig ball went for $120,000. A Sandy Koufax game-used Dodgers jersey sold for $170,000. Mazel tov.

Some people buy Porsches, some people invest in sports memorabilia.

There was lots and lots of cool stuff from cards to balls to bats to World Series press pins, and while generally speaking you weren’t going to get anything for much less than $1,000, and there was ferocious bidding even on comparatively inexpensive items, it was possible with the right focus and a little bit of luck to pluck something that seemed pretty special for an apparently reasonable amount of money. One example was a very sharp condition Connie Mack signed baseball that went for $900.

I enjoyed watching the bidding on three different signed Honus Wagner baseballs. One ball, clearly in superb condition, sold for $22,500. Another ball, which looked fine, too, sold for $10,000. It is a general rule in the collecting world that a single-signed baseball is more valuable than one signed by more than one person. That super expensive Ruth-Gehrig ball is an exception. Team balls are in a different category, though, less prized I guess because they seem cluttered with names and include signatures by less consequential ballplayers.

A third Wagner ball fell into this category. It was a 1947 Pittsburgh Pirates autographed team ball. Hank Greenberg, in his final Major League season, was on the team and on the ball. So was future Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner. Wagner was a coach and his signature is extremely clear. The ball itself was a little shabby, but it sold for $1,300. That sounds like a bargain to me.

Of course, bargains are relative to people who must think about making the rent, putting food on the table, covering student loans, and making car payments before they consider spending on Honus Wagner.

New York Yankees (27-16 overall, 4-3 last week)

The Yankees will gladly welcome back Granderson (Photo: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports)

The Yankees had eight scheduled games this week because of a doubleheader that was serving as make-up games against the Cleveland Indians. Luckily, only seven of those games were played as Sunday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays was rained out, ironically. The Yankees came into this week only a game up on the Baltimore Orioles, and it stayed that way to end the week. The club traded shutouts with the Indians to start the week, lost their series to the Seattle Mariners, 2-1, but did take both games against the Blue Jays in the weekend series.

The game I wanted to showcase was the beatdown the Mariners put on the Bronx Bombers, 12-2 back on Wednesday. Phil Hughes started the game and recorded only two outs while giving up six hits, seven runs (all earned), two walks, and surrendering one home run. Sadly, Brett Marshall was the sacrificial lamb in his Major League debut, going 5.2 innings giving up nine hits, five runs (all earned), five walks, and two home runs.

• Analysis:

The team did see the return of Curtis Granderson to the lineup, and manager Joe Girardi isn’t just slotting him into his regular center field position. Instead, Granderson has seen time in both left and right field, while the team takes advantage of Brett Gardner‘s defense. General manager Brian Cashman made a few moves this week to help bolster the middle infield. Alberto Gonzalez was designated for assignment after the Yankees acquired Reid Brignac from the Rockies. Meanwhile, earlier in the week, infielder Chris Nelson was also designated for assignment when the club called up 3B/2B David Adams. The team is beginning to get some of their injured starters back, so it’ll be interesting to see how Girardi manages the lineup in the coming weeks.

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Boston Red Sox (27-17 overall, 5-1 last week)

After a week in which the club went 2-5, the Red Sox turned it around on their most recent road trip. First the club made a stop down in Tampa to take on their division foes the Tampa Bay Rays and took two of three. They outscored the Rays 16-10 in the series, and Jon Lester won the battle of the southpaw aces when he defeated reigning Cy Young Award winner, David Price, 12-2. Lester went seven strong innings giving up eight hits and two runs (both earned). Meanwhile, the Sox continued their great week by sweeping the Minnesota Twins in the weekend series. The game to pick out of this three-game set is the final one, where John Lackey pitched six innings while only surrendering one hit and one run, while striking out five.

• Analysis

Our friends at BoSox Injection said it best by saying the key difference between last year’s Red Sox and the current team is resolve. It’s difficult to argue that point because injuries piled up for last year’s team and when they started to head south record-wise, they couldn’t seem to recover. However, this year’s team has seen two of their best bullpen arms (Andrew Bailey and Joel Hanrahan) go down with injuries, as well as David Ortiz and Shane Victorino on the DL for an extended period of time. They have fought through it each time and are now only a half game out of first place. Their starting pitching continues to pace this club.

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Baltimore Orioles (23-20 overall, 0-5 last week)

Rough week for a pitcher who has been dominant since the O’s got out of the cellar last year (Photo: Joy R. Absalon-USA TODAY Sports)

It was a rough week to be an Orioles fan. If you had to pin it on something, it would be the pitching staff, most notably the bullpen. Closer Jim Johnson had his worst week in recent memory in which he blew a one-run lead against the San Diego Padres with two outs in the ninth. Then, against the Rays with a two-run cushion, he gave up five runs on three hits and blew another save opportunity. It was truly tough to watch, and O’s fans have to be holding their collective breaths knowing a big part of closing is confidence, after being shellacked twice in as many tries, one can make a case that Johnson might see more regression before he turns it around.

Not all is lost though, third baseman Manny Machado is still raking. He had another good week, hitting .304/.304/.565 including four doubles and one triple in 23 plate appearances.

• Analysis:

Weeks like this happen to every team. It just goes to show how precious the back of the bullpen can be, they can either lose it or keep teams in games and this week they just couldn’t keep it together. Perhaps the most alarming story out of O’s camp is that this five-game losing streak all came at Camden Yards where they now hold a losing record (9-11) They’re even being outscored, 102-96, at home. All that said, the O’s are still a young team, and young clubs are prone to bouts of inconsistency. We could just as likely see them go on a 6-0 tear next week as we are another 0-fer.

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Tampa Bay Rays (23-20 overall, 4-2 last week)

The Rays are still a full four games out of first, but they have gained three games on the division leaders since May 1st. This past week they took four games against division foes, which included a sweep of the Orioles. The Red Sox ended the Rays six-game win streak earlier in the week, and ended up losing back-to-back games. Young upstart, Matt Moore is pitching out of his gourd in the early going this season and he pitched another good one this week. He gave up five hits and one run against the Orioles, while striking out only three against one walk in seven innings. Those numbers have pushed his totals to 8-0 with a 2.29 ERA (4.19 FIP).

On the hitting side, Matt Joyce had a good week batting .300/.364/.700 including two home runs, two doubles, and eight runs batted in 22 plate appearances.

• Analysis:

The old adage is, if the Rays are going anywhere, it’ll be because of their pitching. Ironically, the Rays bats are second in baseball in wRC+ (112) trailing only the Cleveland Indians. Meanwhile, their pitching is 22nd in FIP (4.19) and has generally disappointed in the early going. To make matters worse, their ace, David Price, is now on the disabled list with triceps issues. Luckily, the club is stocked with young fresh (and good) arms in the minors and have since called up Jake Odorizzi, whom they acquired from the Kansas City Royals in the James Shields trade.

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Toronto Blue Jays (17-26 overall, 2-2 last week)

Because of how the schedule worked out, and how Mother Nature intervened, the Blue Jays only played four games this week. First they invited the reigning World Champions, the San Francisco Giants, to the Rogers Centre for a two-game series, winning both with their bats. The Jays pulverized Giant pitching to the tune of 21 runs, while only giving up nine. It seems as though Jose Bautista has gotten his groove back, he’s hit .306/.422/.583 over the past two weeks. Meanwhile, his partner-in-crime Edwin Encarnacion has one-upped him hitting .343/.444/.657 over that same span.

However, for as much firepower they displayed against the Giants they looked punchless in the rain-shortened weekend series against the Yankees. They scored only two runs while giving up 12, and looked like much of what we’ve seen so far from the Jays this season. Consistency has evaded the team to the north this year.

• Analysis:

It seems for every step forward the club makes, they take a step back. The momentum the bats they gained in the series against the Giants were just as quickly washed away against the Yankees, which is why they are in last place in the East and a full 10 games out. It’s difficult to win when your run differential is -45 and your pitching ranks 29th in both ERA (4.81) and FIP (4.69). The Jays are also in the middle of the pack in hitting, placing 18th in wRC+ (94), which is tied with the Yankees. If the Jays want to shoot for the division, or even one of the Wild Card spots, they need to play like they did earlier in the week, rather than the latter half.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs

Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer does everything well on the diamond, but above all he is a premier batsman with three American League batting titles on his resume. Credit: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Maybe some day Joe Mauer will wear out and throw away his catcher’s mask and shinguards, morphing into a full-time designated hitter-first baseman. But for the moment he is still primarily a catcher and he is one of the best-hitting catchers of all time.

Now that he is 30, the Minnesota Twins want to do their best to preserve Mauer’s skills at their top level and not put him through quite as much abuse at home-plate where runner collisions, foul tips, and such dangers lurk. So it won’t be terribly long before Mauer gives up catching altogether (a few years, say).

It seems amazing that Mauer is in his 10th season already, but he broke in as a 21-year-old. During the decade he has established Hall of Fame credentials. At 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds Mauer is sturdy enough to withstand most anything that occurs in the traffic jams at home plate. And one of the greatest of blessings for the Twin Cities franchise is that he is a local, born in St. Paul and attending high school in that city.

Throughout the course of Major League history one of the givens has been that catchers can’t hit and they have not been counted on to do much of it, either. Their value has always been calculated by the way they field, take charge on the field, handle pitchers, and call games. If they could also hit, gravy.

There have been several Hall of Fame catchers who could do more than their share at the plate, and were relied on as sluggers and run producers. Yogi Berra with the Yankees, Johnny Bench with the Reds, and Roy Campanella with the Dodgers, are three that fit that description. They were not easy outs.

Mauer is a five-time American League All-Star–and with a .351 batting average going into Sunday he is a likely choice for the 2013 team, too. What sets Mauer apart from nearly all of his predecessors behind the plate has been his sustained excellence hitting for average. The common wisdom is that catchers work harder than anyone else on the field and that their bodies wear down quicker because of all the stress they put on them in a squat, and that all costs them in concentration and reflexes at the plate.

So it has evolved over time that managers don’t expect .300 seasons out of their backstops. Mauer is one the grandest exceptions to the rule. His lifetime batting average is .324 and his career on-base percentage is .406.  The 2009 AL Most Valuable Player, Mauer also owns three batting titles. He won crowns in 2006, 2008, and 2009, with respective averages of .347, .328, and .365.

There are 13 catchers in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Only four of them have .300 lifetime averages: Mickey Cochrane, .320; Bill Dickey, .313; Lombardi; and Buck Ewing, .303. Only Cochrane, at .419, has a higher on-base percentage. Mauer is in elite company.

Mauer’s most distinguishing characteristic is his three batting titles. Catchers do not lead the league in hitting, not the American League, not the National League. A lifetime .306 hitter, Hall of Famer Ernie Lombardi won NL batting titles in 1938 and 1942 for the Reds. The San Francisco Giants’ Buster Posey in 2012 joined Mauer and Lombardi as the only catchers ever to win batting crowns. That goes back to 1876.

Mauer seems to be in the hunt for another shot this year, but he may never win another batting title again, either. He has already proved that he can do things that almost no one else has ever done and whatever happens from here on he has proved to be one of the greats at his position.

Second-year Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Moore has been overpowering hitters all season this year and he is off to a 7-0 start. Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

This could be a year of the pitcher. There are so many starters off to a fast start that candidates for the All-Star team are as thick as mosquitoes at a swamp. If they all keep it up there could be more 20-game winners in one year than there have been in ages.

They won’t, of course, because baseball hardly ever plays out on a smooth path. Yet there are a remarkable number of guys who have simply owned opposing batting orders since the beginning of April.

It’s crowded at the top. And no one has gotten off to a better start than Tampa Bay’s Matt Moore. Moore is a southpaw who turns 24 in a month and after an 11-11 rookie year has begun 2013 witha  7-0 record accompanied by a 2.44 earned run average.

Nice job, but he is not leading the pack by much. The Boston Red Sox alone have two starters breathing on Moore’s shoulder as potential major winners this season. Clay Buchholz, who has a 1.78 ERA, and Jon Lester, 2.72, are each 6-0.

Over in the National League, Arizona’s Patrick Corbin is also 6-0 with a 1.52 earned run average. Corbin, who has slightly less experience than Moore, will turn 24 in two months. He’s another southpaw simply overpowering hitters in the early season.

Lined up behind Corbin is another young hurler, Matt Harvey, who made 10 appearances for the New York Mets last year. Harvey is 5-0 with a 1.55 ERA. He turned 24 in March.

It’s kind of difficult to imagine the sport being inundated with an entire crop of Walter Johnsons all at once, but those are just the starting pitchers who are undefeated. There are a whole bunch more off to starts that nearly equal that group. There are so many it’s a wonder any position player can get on base.

Jordan Zimmerman of the Washington Nationals, who is supposed to only be the third-best starter in his team’s rotation, is 7-1 with a 1.69 earned run average. Yu Darvish, the second-year hurler from Japan now gracing the Texas Rangers mound, is 7-1 with a 2.97 ERA. Lance Lynn of the Cardinals is 6-1, 2.88.

The Seattle Mariners are getting pretty good mileage out of another Japanese pitcher, Hisashi Iwakuma, who is 5-1 with a 1.84 ERA. Jake Peavey, a veteran who has been battling injuries for the last couple of seasons, is showing that you don’t have to be 24 to be a star. Peavey stands at 5-1 and 2.96. Yet a third Japanese pitcher, Hiroki Kuroda, is 6-2 with a 1.99 ERA for the New York Yankees.

And that’s still not all. Three pitchers whose earned run averages are even better than the others have somehow managed to lose a couple of games. St. Louis’ Shelby Miller is 5-2 with a 1.40 ERA. The Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw is 4-2 with a 1.40 ERA. And The King, Felix Hernandez of the Mariners, is 5-2 with a 1.53 ERA.

All of this represents a snapshot of the moment because a week from now they could all be slumping. Hitters may have figured out their deliveries and tendencies. Not every one of these pitchers are young, but a majority are. Skipping Kuroda (38) and Iwakuma (32), who essentially had almost complete careers before coming to the United States, Peavey, at 31, is the only other pitcher in this entire group over 30.

Including those previously noted birthdays, we’ve got Harvey, Corbin and Moore all at 24, Miller the youngest at 22, Kershaw at 25, Lynn and Darvish at 26, Hernandez and Zimmerman at 27, Buchholz at 28, and Lester at 29.

They could be symbolic of a new crop of young, tremendous pitchers that baseball fans will be cheering on for years to come.

Texas Rangers designated hitter Lance Berkman has been connecting well enough to give his new team a big boost at bat this season as he prepares for likely retirement after the 2013 season. Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Lance Berkman threatened to retire in the off-season between 2012 and 2013, but it seems he made the right choice joining the Texas Rangers for what could be his last fling. He may be 37, but he can still make contact and produce big hits.

The Rangers needed to find another bat once they chose not to re-sign Josh Hamilton, and while neither Berkman nor Texas pretends he is the long-term solution it is shaping up that he was just the right answer for this year. With about 25 percent of the season completed, the Rangers are in first place in the American League West Division and Berkman has been a solid contributor.

In 35 games Berkman has hit just three home runs, but he has nine doubles and has driven in 21 runs, is batting .286 and has a .414 on-base percentage. Going into this weekend’s play the Rangers are 27-14 and lead the second-place Seattle Mariners by seven games.

A six-time All-Star, mostly with the Houston Astros, and then the St. Louis Cardinals, during his 15-year career Berkman has been a solid player, but not usually the No. 1 gun in a lineup. He is past his prime and not going to fill that role for Texas, either, but he still hits well enough to matter and to scare pitchers, and he has been very smart at the plate this season.

A left-handed hitter, Berkman has put together some excellent lifetime statistics while not having them be quite strong enough for serious Hall of Fame consideration. During this on-going, and perhaps last season for him, Berkman has 363 home runs, 1,221 RBIs, and a lifetime average of .295.

At his age, and with thoughts stretching ahead to retirement, Berkman was wise to continue his career with an American League team as a designated hitter. He is on the older side to patrol a lot of ground in the outfield, so this role is a natural for him. Although the nicknames probably get mentioned more often in the city where he is playing, besides his 220 pounds Berkman does carry around a couple of heavy duty nicknames: Big Puma and Fat Elvis.

Over the course of his career Berkman has driven in more than 100 runs six times and in 2002 he led the National League with 128 RBIs. His finest all-around work came in 2006 with the Astros. That season Berkman smashed 45 homers, drove in 136, and batted .315. His on-base percentage was .420 and his slugging percentage was .621.

Surely when the Rangers passed on reupping with Hamilton long-term there was a fear that there might not be enough pop in the Texas batting order. And even after the Rangers signed Berkman there had to be some questioning what his value was going to be. After all, Berkman was injured most of last season, playing in just 32 games with 97 plate appearances.

You have to believe that a guy who had a distinguished career would not want to retire on a note like that if he had regained his health. Well, Lance Berkman did get back to full strength, and even if this is his last hurrah, at the moment things are taking form for a much more satisfying departure. Being a contributor to a winner that has World Series potential is a lot more fun than languishing on the disabled list.

Once a promising pitcher, Rick Ankiel remade himself into a Major League outfielder and while recently cut from Houston he landed a new contract with the New York Mets. Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

Few baseball players are attuned to the ups and downs of the game as Rick Ankiel. He was cut by the worst team in baseball, picked up by another team, made big plays in the field for less money than he was getting (I think) and that was just in the past week.

Ankiel is 33 in human years, but about 133 in baseball years. Every time it seems he is about to be exiled from the island for good, he swims to safety, regroups and survives. Don’t play musical chairs with this guy-he’ll whip you every time.

Once upon a time Ankiel was a phenom pitcher. His senior year in high school he finished 11-1 with an 0.47 earned run average. That sounds as if someone was swinging with his eyes closed and accidently put good enough wood on the ball to power it out of the park. Which may be true since Ankiel struck out 162 batters in 74 innings.

He reached the majors for the first time with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999 after capturing all sorts of  honors in the minors. He was barely past 20 for his Major League debut. Only a year later, however, Ankiel’s career began to go haywire. Pitching in the National League Division Series in a game that the Cardinals won, Ankiel threw five wild pitches in the third inning.

No one realized at the time that he wasn’t simply succumbing to nerves for that occasion or that we would never really see the promising Ankiel in tip-top form again. Remarkably, for no apparent reason, Ankiel lost his ability to throw strikes. He was so wild that umpires and bat boys alike had to wear armor for their own safety.

In almost no time Ankiel’s pitching career was ruined. Baseball fans shook their heads wondering what had happened to the young southpaw flame thrower, but they also believed they would never see him in uniform again by the end of the 2004 season.

Except in a feel-good, beat-the-odds story, Ankiel worked his way back to the majors as an outfielder by 2007 and batted .285. Between that year and this, Ankiel suited up for the Cardinals, the Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves, and Washington Nationals. He was a serviceable backup, but no star. Ankiel has never been as good as a position player as he projected to be as a pitcher. But he did maintain a job in the big leagues, an achievement that exceeded the grasp of 99.9 percent of baseball hopefuls.

When the Astros dumped Ankiel recently, after he appeared in 25 games in 2013, he was batting .194. If the Astros don’t want you, then your next stop is usually going to be retirement, a stint in some independent league, or a shot at a minor-league contract.

Instead, Ankiel was fortunate and was offered a deal from the Mets. The Mets had some holes they needed filling that neither concrete nor sand could fill in. So they took a shot with Ankiel. The same day he signed a contract he was starting in the outfield. Four games into his Mets career Ankiel is batting .250 and he helped win a game with a home run.

How long can Ankiel’s living on the edge last? Not much longer, one would guess. But you’ve got to give the guy props. He was doomed and adapted. He was locked out of his sport and he found a creative way back in. Yeah, maybe when he is in his 60s he will still have those might-have-been moments of regret about his pitching career. But Rick Ankiel can always be proud of the way he turned the bad hand dealt him in his favor.