MLB Power Rankings: Wrapping up April

April is in the books; how do the MLB Power Rankings look after the first month of the season?

You can’t make the playoffs in April, but you can sure play your way out of them. Around Major League Baseball, several teams may have already taken themselves out of contention. The Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants, Toronto Blue Jays, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners were all expected to fight for playoff spots, but are looking up at long climbs back up the standings.

MLB’s nice scheduling quirk with divisional play dominating most of April makes it difficult for real separation to occur in the standings. Only one divisional leader has a lead of more than four games entering play on Wednesday night. There have been fierce battles around the league between divisional rivals, none more so than between the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox. MLB has had something to say about that, however.

Which teams have made the biggest climb up the Power Rankings since the start of the year? Who wants a redo on the month of April? Read on to find out.

The Royals have scored one run or fewer in nine of their first 25 games this year. They are rightfully deserving of the dead-last slot in the MLB Power Rankings and have shown no signs of life so far this year. The Royals have still not cracked 70 runs on the year. The number-one team in these rankings put up over 70 in one week.

Every offensive flaw that was harped on while the Royals were making trips to the World Series — no power, no walks, too many ground balls, too many first-pitch swings, etc — have come back to bite them this year. Is there an end of the core in sight? It very well may be time to start holding a fire sale in Kansas City.

Deciding he wanted to make another attempt as an MLB starter is looking like the best move possible for Trevor Cahill, and it was very smart to sign with the Padres and pitch in their massive ballpark. In five starts this year, the starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter is 2-2 with a 3.60 ERA and 37 strikeouts in 30.0 innings.

Cahill is pitching himself back into a viable number-two starter. Do not forget that he won 18 games in 2010 for the Athletics before bouncing around the league and being turned into a reliever. Cahill could fetch a nice prospect haul for the Padres in July.

It may be time to accept that this is the new normal for the Giants. They are 30 games below .500 since the All-Star break last season. They are just not playing like the team that won three World Series titles between 2010 and 2014.

There is nothing immediately fixable with the Giants. This is not a team full of sluggers that is starting the season slowly. They are primarily contact hitters who can plate just enough runs to support a good pitching staff. The offense has not scored enough runs, and the pitching staff has not prevented them. As if to drive home a point, the Giants month of April ended the same as it began — with a blown save by closer Mark Melancon.

The Braves have been a bit of a roller coaster so far this season. Up one week, down the next. Their lineup has been able to make up for the foibles of the starting rotation, and Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis have looked years younger this season.

Nothing compares to the hot start Freddie Freeman has turned in so far this season. Freeman is hitting for better power than ever in his career. Luckily for the Braves, cooler, smarter heads prevailed when they were shopping his name as part of their rebuilding effort. Freeman is the face of this franchise.

Go ahead and take this time to give the Blue Jays a round of applause for winning their first series of the year. Took them long enough. Toronto’s starting pitching had deserved better most of the month of April, but the offense has been dormant.

The tide may be starting to turn for the Blue Jays offense. Steve Pearce has gotten hot, and Josh Donaldson should be returning. The Blue Jays are hardly the worst team in the league thanks to their pitching depth. They may have dug themselves too deep a hole to get back into the playoff picture, however.

With the NL Central still so bunched up, it is way too early to call the Pirates out of the race, and they are coming off a better week. They really hit the jackpot with their trade for Ivan Nova last year. There may not have been an MLB pitcher with such control of the strike zone in decades.

Now, if only Nova’s strike-throwing ability could rub off on youngster Tyler Glasnow. Now that could really get the Pirates rotation firing on all cylinders. He has walked 17 in 20.2 innings this season. No matter how good his stuff is, Glasnow cannot succeed with that many walks.

Attempting to build their team around speed and defense has not played out as the Mariners envisioned it this year. The M’s are in the middle of the pack in the league for batting average and OPS, but are in the top 10 in runs scored. Led by James Paxton, the Seattle rotation has a 3.97 ERA. The big left-hander has been so good that he is making up for the rest of the rotation in the team statistic.

The Mariners have had to cobble together their lineup and rotation due to a weak farm system. The creative approach to roster construction has helped make them competitive, but it might not be enough to get over the top and into the playoffs.

Looking only at their record from last week, the Mets were not that bad. Unfortunately, it goes so much deeper than that. After taking the first two games of a weekend series with the Washington Nationals, the Mets endured their worst loss in years to close out the series. Noah Syndergaard was back on the hill after missing a start with a biceps injury. He would last less than two innings and allowed five earned runs. The Mets went on to lose 23-5, and Syndergaard was diagnosed with a torn lat that will keep him out for three months.

No one will know for sure if Syndergaard’s lat injury could have been avoided if he was willing to get an MRI on his biceps or sit out another start to recover. Pitchers like Syndergaard can be their own worst enemy, and the Mets are now dealing with the consequences. Without their best pitcher for a long chunk of the season, the Mets have very little chance to chase down the Nationals.

Entering play on Wednesday night, the Athletics had lost seven of eight, very few of them competitive games. Ace Sonny Gray returned on Tuesday night in Minnesota and looked good for a few innings. He would eventually leave after six innings having allowed four earned runs and three home runs. The A’s are no closer to figuring out what type of pitcher Gray will be for the rest of his career.

Yonder Alonso has been one of the few consistent hitters in the lineup, and his .292/.363/.556 line could become attractive to contenders looking to add a veteran bat at the trade deadline. He is one of the few movable assets the A’s can work with if they look to add prospects later this summer.

Welp — the jig is up on Scott Feldman. After starting out the year with four respectable starts, he has allowed 11 runs over his last nine innings with 11 hits and seven walks. The bloom is off the rose for the rest of the Reds as well.

The nice start to 2017 for the Reds is a thing of the past. They don’t have enough weapons on offense or enough starting pitching to stay competitive. Joey Votto has not been able to get untracked yet this year, and if he’s not hitting, no one on the Reds is hitting.

The Rangers have taken a step back after going 5-2 last week. Adrian Beltre is still on the DL and will not be back until at least the end of May. Ace Cole Hamels is also hitting the disabled list. The Rangers can’t absorb many more body blows if they are going to claw back into the AL West race.

Texas has hit plenty of home runs, but their average and on-base percentage are much too low for a team with designs on a title. There is a lot to like with Joey Gallo and Rougned Odor’s raw power, but they strike out just as often as they put the ball in play, and will chase just about anything near the plate. Mike Napoli has also shown why so few teams were interested in signing him. He has batted near .150 on the year.

The Phillies continue to hover near .500, and have been able to play scrappy baseball to keep themselves in most games. They have only been blown out twice this year, but have two of their own blow-out wins. The Phillies have generally been a forgettable team and may slide further below .500 in the coming weeks.

The starting rotation for the Phillies is being propped up by Jeremy Hellickson and Jerad Eickhoff. Vince Velasquez and Aaron Nola were both viewed as better prospects than Eickhoff, but he has been the most consistent pitcher in the rotation the past two years. With Nola on the disabled list again and Velasquez struggling with his command, the Phillies do not appear to have their future rotation as figured out at this point.

Around the diamond, it is nice to see Cesar Hernandez continuing to hold a hot bat. His play forced franchise icon Chase Utley out two years ago, and he has seized the job. Aaron Altherr, who missed most of last year with an injury, has a nice .333/.404/.627 line with three home runs in 51 at-bats. If Maikel Franco could ever take the next step, the Phillies might have a nice little core to build around.

It was a sloppy week for the Marlins, who have lost six of seven entering play on May 3. As they struggle to move on from the loss of ace Jose Fernandez, the Marlins have not been able to find stability in their starting rotation. Their starters have a 4.95 ERA on the year, 28th in MLB. All but one member of their staff has walked more than four batters per nine. Before hitting the disabled list, free-agent addition Edinson Volquez walked 22 in 28.2 innings.

Giancarlo Stanton is closer to being “back” to where he was before his brutal beaning than he has been over the past two seasons. Stanton is batting .253/.333/.505 on the year and has cut his strikeouts slightly. It no longer appears in the cards that he will be a once-in-a-generation slugger, but merely a very good home run hitter and not much else.

Since bottoming out at 3-9, the Cardinals have gone 10-4. Their offense is still one of the lowest-scoring lineups in baseball, but the starting pitching has been solid. After being so maligned in the first two weeks of the season, the St. Louis bullpen now ranks 25th in the league with a 5.15 ERA. It may take another two weeks to undo the damage caused earlier in the year, but the Cardinals relievers are trending in the right direction.

Mike Leake has been the story for the Cardinals rotation and leads the National League with a 1.35 ERA. Newfound success with his cutter has helped take Leake from a solid number-four starter to an apparent ace. He has not given up a home run in his first 33.1 innings in 2017, and opponents are batting .226 against him with a .568 OPS.

Adam Wainwright is still turning in ugly starts, and Dexter Fowler and Aledmys Diaz are barely hitting above .200, but there is much more reason to believe this St. Louis team can make a run at contending in the NL Central. The Chicago Cubs had their chance to bury the Cards early and were unable to do so.

While we all sit and wait for the other shoe to drop with the White Sox, they just manage to keep winning. Chicago was expected to contend for the worst record in baseball after trading away Chris Sale and Adam Eaton, but their roster is not nearly as stripped down as many seemed to believe. The White Sox have been one of the biggest surprises in baseball, but they did this last year. The 2016 Sox went 17-8 in April before crumbling.

Chicago’s record aligns exactly with their Pythagorean Record — expected win-loss total based on run differential. So they have neither overachieved or underachieved based on the amount of runs scored. Still, Derek Holland and James Shields have combined for a sub-2.00 ERA in eight starts, so there should be some statistical correction coming in the next few weeks. Avisail Garcia and his .382/.433/.629 line could possibly be for real. He may finally be harnessing his five-tool potential.

The Rays became the unfortunate first victims of the Blue Jays this season. Entering their series last weekend, the Jays had not won a single series all season, but the Rays were able to plate only two runs over the final two games of the series. In their loss on Sunday, they were able to manage only four hits over eight innings against the Toronto bullpen after Aaron Sanchez left after an inning due to injury.

Tampa Bay appears destined for another mid-pack season. They will not finish with over 90 losses like last season, but simply do not have enough impact talent in their starting lineup. Their starting pitchers have been the darlings of the analytical community for years, but the position players have not developed at the same rate. Kevin Kiemaier, for example, has been viewed as a potential breakout hitter for years. He is batting .200/.294/.276 this year with 34 strikeouts in 28 games. The Rays just have too many holes up and down their lineup to remain competitive enough to win enough games to make the playoffs.

The Angels are back with another hot week to push themselves back above .500. Albert Pujols has begun giving Mike Trout much more help and has driven in seven runs over the past week. Pujols has his batting line up to .248/.291/.376 on the year and has driven in 23 runs. Whaddya know — hitting behind Mike Trout is a great way to rack up RBI opportunities!

Speaking of Trout, what more can you say? All he has done so far this season is bat .363/.455/.706 with seven home runs, 10 doubles, and five stolen bases. Trout isn’t off to the hottest start in the league, but he is the one player who might actually stand a chance to sustain his ridiculous line. As hard as it is to believe, we may not yet have seen the best Mike Trout has to offer.

Reality may be starting to catch up to Eric Thames. The biggest MLB story of the month of April has batted .182 over his past seven games without a home run and five strikeouts. This regression was always going to happen at some point, and it is now up to Thames to right himself at the plate and show us that his hot start was not a fluke. He is still batting .326/.446/.761 on the year with seven doubles, 11 home runs, and 20 RBI.

The Brewers will still be one of the most exciting young teams in the league to watch the rest of the season, but they will have their ups and downs. As a team, they have already struck out 267 times. It would go as a major accomplishment if they are still able to be within a few games of .500 by the end of July.

The Twins deserve a bump up the MLB Power Rankings this week after continuing to play solid baseball. They have continued kicking the Royals when they are down, and have managed to be competitive against the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians. It’s hard not to like what we have seen from Miguel Sano and Ervin Santana so far this year.

Sano is batting .317/.446/.707 on the year with eight home runs and 27 RBI. He has also drawn 19 walks, a real sign that opposing pitchers have come to fear his power. His sophomore slump is a thing of the past.

Realistically, the Twins do look like a sub-.500 team by the time the season ends. Their starting pitching has not done enough in most games and has been bailed out by the offense. Everyone said the same thing about their 2015 team that fought for a playoff berth until the final week of the season.

After beginning this week on a four-game losing streak, the Tigers have responded by rattling off three wins to lift their record back over .500. Offense has hardly been the problem, as Detroit ranks in the top five in the American League in runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. They will keep scoring, especially when Miguel Cabrera and J.D. Martinez get healthy.

What has been problematic for the Tigers — a continuing trend — is the pitching. The long-term contract for Jordan Zimmermann is looking like an even worse investment than Anibal Sanchez, and that’s saying something. Closer Francisco Rodriguez may need to be stripped of his duties very shortly. His 5.06 ERA and two losses will not allow him to keep the job much longer. Is it too much to ask for Brad Ausmus to be given a competent bullpen one of these years?

The Indians just can’t seem to catch a break with their starting rotation. Corey Kluber, who has started the 2017 season slowly, left his most recent start after just three innings due to back pain. Before leaving the game, Kluber had allowed five runs on seven hits, raising his season ERA to 5.06.

Cleveland has started slowly in their AL title defense, and the starting pitching has been all to blame. Only Carlos Carrasco has pitched well on a consistent basis. Danny Salazar has had hit moments and has struck out 13.0 per nine. He has also walked an unsightly 4.3 per nine. Trevor Bauer’s ERA is touching 8.00, while Josh Tomlin’s is close to 9.00. Regardless of how great the offense has been, the Indians will not take off until their starting pitching figures things out.

The pitching wheels may be about to fall off for the young Colorado staff. After pitching well for most of the entire month of April, the Rockies gave up 46 runs in a four-game series against the Washington Nationals. Sure, the Nats have one of the best offenses in MLB, but that’s still way too many runs to give up in four straight games.

Antonio Senzatela and Kyle Freeland continue to pitch very well, but Tyler Chatwood and Tyler Anderson have ugly ERAs after six starts. Top prospect German Marquez was bombed by the Nationals for eight runs in his MLB debut but responded nicely with six shutout innings in his second start against Arizona. The Rockies will continue to put up runs at a dizzying clip, but if their pitching staff continues receding, they will find their record getting and staying much closer to .500.

The Red Sox continue to be one of the most controversial teams in baseball and were at the heart of two more ugly events in the past week. First, Adam Jones was subject to racist taunts at Fenway Park. Then, Chris Sale refused to let his team’s feud with Manny Machado die, throwing behind him in the first inning. Machado responded by homering off Sale later in the game. How many more times will John Farrell cover for his players?

Boston needs to put the childish antics and beanball wars in the past. Sale could have and maybe should have been, ejected on the third batter of a game his team desperately needed to win. The Red Sox are not playing like a first-place team right now, but are swaggering about the diamond and puffing out their chests like they are 10 games clear of the rest of the AL East. That stems from the manager and a clubhouse still seeking its identity after the retirement of David Ortiz.

The Cubs are finding out the hard way that repeating as World Champions is not as easy as it seems on paper. No player on the Cubs has had as hard a time to start the year than playoff hero Kyle Schwarber. The big leadoff man has batted just .196/.317/.353 on the year with four home runs and 35 strikeouts in 102 at-bats. A move down the batting order may need to take place if he continues to slump because this is not helping Chicago’s inconsistent offense. Jon Jay and Albert Almora may need to take some of his playing time as well.

Four-fifths of the Cubs rotation has struggled as well, and Brett Anderson in the fifth spot may not last much longer. Coming back from a season-ending injury, he has a 6.23 ERA in 21.2 innings of work. The bullpen was a concern entering the year, but Carl Edwards, Wade Davis, and Hector Rondon have combined to allow just one earned run in 33.2 innings.

The Dodgers have finally begun to get untracked, and rookie Cody Bellinger has been a big part of their surge. Through his first eight games in the big leagues, he has batted .345/.406/.655 with two home runs and five RBI. The 21-year-old outfielder/first baseman has also shown a knack for the big hit.

If Bellinger keeps hitting, the Dodgers will face a sticky situation when Adrian Gonzalez and Joc Pederson return from the disabled list. With Arizona and Colorado off to hot starts, the Dodgers cannot afford to send Bellinger back to the bench or minors in favor of more established veterans. They have to simply play the best hitters regardless of whose feelings may be hurt. Julio Urias also made his season debut last weekend. The Dodgers have handled him extremely carefully, and they may finally have to turn him loose for a full season.

There has been no evidence to date that the Diamondbacks hot start is a mirage. With one of the best offenses in MLB, Arizona looks to be for real. The Diamondbacks rank second behind the Washington Nationals with nearly 150 runs scored already this season. Having A.J. Pollock and David Peralta back for full seasons has added an extra gear to what was already a very dynamic lineup.

Arizona’s pitching staff has been able to keep up with the offense this year, which was not the case in 2016. Patrick Corbin has been dominant on the mound, with a 2.29 ERA in six starts. Zack Greinke and Robbie Ray have also rebounded nicely from down years in 2016. If the Diamondbacks can continue to pitch the baseball like they have so far in 2017, they will cause real headaches for the rest of the National League.

For now, it is time to buy into the Yankees. Led by Aaron Judge, they have had a relentless lineup. New York leads the American League with an OPS of .815 and 140 runs scored. The Yankees have done all of this without Gary Sanchez behind the plate since the first week of the season.

Judge has seemingly hit the ball 450 feet with an exit velocity of 110 mph every time he steps to the plate this year. He has shown outstanding pitch recognition skills and has not gotten himself out on soft stuff away from the plate. Judge has slugged 1.875 on curveballs this year, looking like a completely different hitter than the one who was utterly overmatched last September.

Dating back to the trade deadline last year when they supposedly entered a rebuilding mode, the Yankees are 48-35. Until their starting pitching shows signs of weakness or MLB pitchers discover the holes in Judge’s swing, they have to be taken seriously as contenders in the AL East.

The Orioles were rolling along Friday night with a 9-1 lead over the Yankees before the wheels fell off and they eventually lost 14-11 in extra innings. Chalk that ugly loss up to the fact that they tried to sneak Vidal Nuno past one of the hottest lineups in baseball. Had they been able to hold onto that big lead, the Orioles would have gone the entire month of April without losing a series.

After starting the year slowly, Manny Machado has now batted .333 over the last seven games with three home runs and six RBI. He smoked two big home runs in the first two games of a heated series in Fenway Park to show the Red Sox just what he thinks of their continued antics. Machado’s best friend on the team, Jonathan Schoop, has now reached base in 19 straight games. Schoop is showing a touch more restraint at the plate this year, and it has helped him to consistently square up baseballs.

Baltimore has not had a homegrown starting pitcher as dominant as Dylan Bundy has been this year since the days of Mike Mussina, who was drafted over 25 years ago. Bundy has shut down the Red Sox three times this year and is 4-1 with a 1.82 ERA. His dominance helps to ease the growing concerns over Kevin Gausman’s continued battle with consistency.

The Astros are beginning to take total control of the AL West. This division was expected to be one of the most competitive in baseball, but the Rangers and Mariners have faltered out of the gate and are way back of the Astros. Houston has had no problem piling on their rivals when they are down.

What’s scary to think is that the Astros have not even begun playing their best baseball. Carlos Correa, one of their many MVP candidates, is batting just .226 on the year with a .649 OPS. Carlos Beltran and Alex Bregman have not gotten hot with the bat. Surprisingly, Marwin Gonzalez has been one of their most productive hitters, with a .957 OPS and 17 RBI.

Dallas Keuchel has been outstanding in the starting rotation, but the Astros bullpen deserves some love, too. Chris Devenski has been the best multi-inning reliever in baseball, and has 34 strikeouts in only 18.1 innings of work. Overall, the Astros look like a complete team and the class of the American League so far.

The Nationals ended the month of April with a flourish, scoring 23 runs to demolish the Mets. They scored 14 runs or more five times in the first month of the season, and have five regulars batting well over .300. Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman appear set to battle each other for the NL Triple Crown.

Washington is off to one of the best offensive starts to a season by a team outside of Colorado in MLB history. They scored 77 runs in the final week of April. The Royals have scored 69 runs all year. The Nationals have gotten their typically great starting pitching out of Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Tanner Roark, and Gio Gonzalez. They are still figuring out their number-five slot, as Joe Ross has struggled in three starts.

Next: Each MLB team's biggest April surprise

Dusty Baker has played mix-and-match with his bullpen, and the results have left something to be desired. The eighth and ninth inning may prove to be the Achilles heel for this offensive juggernaut. A closer-by-committee rarely works, and the Nationals have already blown several wins in the latter innings.