USA Today’s Weekly MLB Power Rankings

After another strong week by the top three teams in the American League East, the New York Yankees, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays, I was excited to see this set of rankings get released this week. New York lost a pair of games to the Miami Marlins before salvaging the series with a split with a pair of victories of their own and also took two out of three against a tough Detroit Tigers team to close out the week. New York has done well but have they done enough to hold on to or improve on their #7 ranking from last week and are the St. Louis Cardinals still the crème of the crop in Major League Baseball? Keep reading…

No better place than to start at the top of the rankings and at the top of this week’s power rankings are the St. Louis Cardinals once again. Despite the rumors, allegations and distractions that come along with the whole hacking the Houston Astros “Ground Control” computer system the team hasn’t seem fazed and continue to keep winning, much like the New York Yankees. The Yankees remained stagnant this week remaining at the #7 spot while the biggest riser, the Tampa Bay Rays, leap-frogged New York when they moved up four spots to the #6 position. The biggest fall this week went to the Toronto Blue Jays who fell six spots all the way to the #12 spot.

To round out the American League East the Baltimore Orioles climbed three spots to the #14 position as they continue to play well while the Boston Red Sox remain on their season-long slide. Boston came in at the #26 position this week despite David Ortiz finally waking up a little bit at the plate.

The Top Five teams in the rankings are the St. Louis Cardinals, the Kansas City Royals, the Houston Astros, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The bottom five teams in the rankings in descending order are the #26 Boston Red Sox, the Colorado Rockies, the Miami Marlins, the Milwaukee Brewers and the #30 ranked Philadelphia Phillies.

Many of these Top 10 teams are in the middle of fighting for their division titles while the middle of the order teams are preparing to either sell or buy at this year’s trading deadline. The Power Rankings may alternate from week to week by who is on a hot streak and who went cold in this particular week but the general gist stays the same, the top teams look likely to make the playoffs while the bottom teams will be selling this time next month. Pay attention, these rankings mean something now.