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A few quick thoughts on Lance Berkman, who has a mangled-up knee and will miss at least six to eight weeks, and what this may mean for his Hall of Fame chances.

My first thought: Other than sabermetric types who dream about walks and OBP, I don't think most baseball fans think of Berkman in Hall of Fame terms and I'm sure some of you will be insulted that I'm using Berkman and Hall of Fame in the same sentence. I could be wrong about that. I believe most baseball writers probably don't think about Berkman in those terms, although I could be wrong about that as well. For example, it's pretty clear that Berkman has been regarded by the baseball writers as a great player. He's finished third, third, fifth, fifth, seventh and seventh in various MVP votes.

What does that mean? Bill James created something called "award shares." If you're a unanimous MVP winner, that's 1.0 award shares -- you collected 100 percent of the possible maximum points; if you collected 80 percent of the possible points, that's .80 award shares. And so on. Berkman has 2.0 career award shares, which doesn't sound like a lot, but is more than Ryne Sandberg, Tony Gwynn, Gary Carter, Roberto Alomar, Rod Carew, Robin Yount, Willie McCovey, Eddie Mathews, Billy Williams, Paul Molitor and many other Hall of Famers.

So I think that at least puts him in the discussion; it doesn't make him a Hall of Famer, but it's a starting point that he merits the debate.

Berkman's power and on-base skills have made him a lethal hitter. From 2001 through 2009, he hit .301/.415/.558 while averaging 32 home runs and 107 RBIs. He hit as high as .331 in those years, topped 40 home runs twice, led the NL one year with 128 RBIs, drove in 136 runs another, made the postseason three times. Those are all things Hall of Famers voters like. During those nine years, he ranked seventh in home runs, fourth in RBIs, fourth in OBP, eighth in slugging percentage, sixth in OPS and fifth in OPS+ (behind Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez). He was, clearly, one of the elite hitters in the game.

But was nine elite years enough? Hall voters, of course, require a tough-to-dissect combination of peak value and career value. After struggling in 2010 with a knee injury, Berkman bounced back with a terrific 2011, hitting .301 with 31 homers. He had a great World Series, hitting .423, driving in five runs, scoring nine. The Cardinals won it all. In 52 career postseason games, his batting line is .317/.417/.532. I'll take that, thank you.

So where does that leave us?

• A player who was one of the elite hitters of his generation.
• Ten Hall of Fame-caliber seasons, plus a great partial season in 2000 (.297/.388/.561 in 114 games) and a not-so-great 2010.
• A terrific postseason performer.
• A player who didn't win an MVP Award but fared well in the voting.

On the negative side: Not much defensive or baserunning value, a late career start (his first big year came at 25) and relatively low career totals (right now) of 359 home runs, 1,197 RBIs and 1,836 hits.

It's interesting to compare him to his one-time teammate, Jeff Bagwell, who obviously isn't in the Hall of Fame (for some reasons we all know about) but whom many of you and in the stat community believe is a no-brainer Hall of Famer:

Bagwell: .297/.408/.540
Berkman: .296/.409/.546

Bagwell did that in 2,150 games, Berkman over 1,787 games so far, so it's not exactly the same thing. Plus Bagwell had to play his early years in the Astrodome and was a superior first baseman and baserunner. Anyway, the point is they're pretty close as hitters, which many may not realize.

I thought entering the season that Berkman needed two more good seasons similar to his 2011 campaign -- get him past 400 home runs, close to 1,500 RBIs. Yes, voters love those round numbers. The knee injury wipes out much of 2012 and puts his future in doubt. Berkman alluded to having concerns about coming back. "You certainly think, if I have to get my ACL repaired, I might be done playing," he said. "And the doctor kind of said that. He's like, 'Well, you're not a young man anymore.'

Without adding to his career counting totals, this puts Berkman on the Hall of Fame bubble. As Dave Cameron wrote on FanGraphs, "Given his numbers and his peers, my guess is that Berkman ends up with guys like (Edgar) Martinez and Todd Helton -- hitters who specialized in the wrong skills."

Given those bubble candidates, voters historically favor the long careers -- Tony Perez and Eddie Murray -- over the high-peak, shorter career guys (Martinez, Larry Walker). They did vote in Jim Rice a few years ago, but he's a bit of an outlier candidate for a lot of reasons, a guy whose case became a politicized battle of the pre-steroids generation.

What do you think? Myself, it's a close call, but I think those peak years were so good I'd vote for him. Ten years as one of the very best hitters in the game? Works for me.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

Prospects are always a popular topic when Keith Law and I gather for a Baseball Today podcast, so here's what was on our minds for Tuesday!

1. Who is this Matt Adams guy on the Cardinals and what should we expect from him with Lance Berkman out?

2. What is the long-term prognosis for Rangers right-hander Neftali Feliz, and why can't Yu Darvish conquer the Mariners?

3. Aroldis Chapman is Cincy's closer, but is that really the best way to use him? Of course it isn't!

4. Our emailers want to know about the overlooked Chicago White Sox, bad managing and Independent leagues.

5. Our preview of Tuesday's schedule looks at the Diamondbacks, Angels and other matchups that matter.

So download and listen to Tuesday's fun Baseball Today podcast, and come back with us for Wednesday!

For a few brief moments on Monday night, it appeared the Cincinnati Reds would slide past the St. Louis Cardinals into first place in the NL Central. The Reds had defeated the Braves 4-1 behind a brilliant effort from Mike Leake and four solo home runs. The Padres were leading the Cardinals late in their game, until Tyler Greene's two-run homer in the eighth lifted the Cards to a 4-3 victory.

Still ... half a game. Half a game. Cardinals fans have to be wondering how this happened.

Considering the hot starts many of the Cardinals jumped out to -- Rafael Furcal, Jon Jay, Carlos Beltran and three-fifths of the rotation in Kyle Lohse, Lance Lynn and Jake Westbrook -- the Cardinals can only look back and wonder why they're not five or six games in front of the Reds. After all, St. Louis' run differential is +58; Cincinnati's is only +3.

I'd call it an opportunity squandered, because now the Reds are breathing down their necks and they're probably here to stay. Hey, there has to be at least two good teams in the NL Central, right?

With all the talk about who should be closing in Cincinnati, the biggest issue with the pitching staff has been Leake. He entered winless in seven starts -- at 0-5, he joined Chris Volstad and Francisco Liriano as the only pitchers without a win and at least five decisions -- but wasn't just reeling from a lack of run support. He'd allowed at least three runs each start, had a 6.21 ERA, a .309 batting average allowed and just 21 strikeouts in 37.2 innings.

Leake walked Martin Prado with one out in the first but struck out Freddie Freeman and Dan Uggla. In the second, Juan Francisco homered, but Leake then retired 14 in a row before Uggla doubled in the seventh. He finished with eight innings, just those two hits and six K's. For Leake, his biggest issue before Monday night had been an ineffective changeup, usually a good pitch for him. In 2010-2011, opponents hit .252 off his changeup but they were hitting .529 in at-bats ending with a changeup in 2012.

He appeared to compensate by throwing more cutters against the Braves -- 28 out of 98, the second-most he's thrown in a start this season. Of course, it helped that he was ahead of hitters much of the night, throwing just two pitches on three-ball counts; in his previous three starts, he'd thrown 31 pitches with three balls. Pitching is easier when you don't have to groove a pitch to avoid a walk.

Leake also sparked the Cincinnati offense in the fourth inning, when he homered off his friend Mike Minor (Minor was the seventh pick in the 2009 draft, Leake the eighth, and the two were teammates on Team USA). Zack Cozart and Drew Stubbs followed with home runs to give the Reds back-to-back-to-back blasts. While it was Leake's first career blast, he's a legitimate threat at the plate with a .271 career average.

The four solo shots do highlight a big problem with the Reds' offense, however. Outside of Joey Votto this lineup is completely hacktastic -- working the count is not exactly a disease that has spread from Votto to everyone else. Even with Votto's MLB-leading 40 walks, the Reds rank just 11th in the NL in free passes, and despite playing in a hitter-friendly home park, their .697 team OPS is tied for 10th in the league. After Votto, Jay Bruce is second on the team with 12 walks -- quadruple that total and you have a guy on pace for 48. Home run boys Cozart and Stubbs can flip the occasional long ball, but they've combined for just 22 walks and 86 strikeouts. Brandon Phillips has just eight walks. Votto gets walked a lot because he often comes up with nobody on base. (Memo to Dusty Baker: Try moving Bruce in front of Votto. Just consider it, please.)

Somewhere, Joe Morgan cringes.

When the Reds won the NL Central in 2010, they led the NL in runs scored. That team led the NL with 188 home runs and a .272 average while ranking ninth in walks. This offense doesn't show signs of matching the firepower of that lineup, not with Votto, Bruce and catcher Ryan Hanigan the only three sporting an OBP over .300.

That means the Reds are going to be in a lot of low-scoring games, which means the bullpen will prove key, especially since Leake's outing was only the 12th in 41 games where the Reds' starter has gone at least seven innings.

Which, inevitably, gets us back to Baker and how he handles the relief crew. It's certainly interesting that in the two days since Aroldis Chapman was "named" the team's closer that exiled closer Sean Marshall picked up the two most important outs.

On Sunday, with the Reds leading the Yankees 3-2 and a runner on with no outs in the eighth, Marshall retired Robinson Cano. Chapman came on for the easy save and faced the bottom of the Yankees lineup after the Reds had extended their lead to 5-2.

On Monday, with Chapman unavailable after pitching four times in five days, Marshall again delivered after Jose Arredondo walked Uggla and Brian McCann with two outs in the ninth. Brought on to face Jason Heyward, Marshall fell behind with a slider, threw two of his big-breaking curveballs for a called strike and a swinging strike, saw Heyward foul off another curve, threw a fastball down low, and then got Heyward to fly to right on another curve.

For all the consternation over who gets the capital C designation, it shouldn't really matter. Marshall is a very good reliever. Chapman has been a great one. Arredondo and Logan Ondrusek are solid right-handers and rookie J.J. Hoover has looked impressive. What Baker should avoid doing is getting trapped into saving Chapman for the ninth inning only -- which means fewer innings and fewer moments with the game on the line. Chapman is the guy you want in there when you need a big strikeout with runners on base in the eighth inning. Marshall, Arrendodo and Ondrusek can close out the three-run leads. Use Chapman and his bullpen mates wisely, and the Reds can stay in this race even with a mediocre offense.

As for the Cardinals, that hot start is a thing of the past. The injuries are mounting and that run differential has gone to waste. We're a quarter of the way into the season and we have a race.

Considering these two teams have some strong dislike for each other going back a couple years, it should be a fun summer in Central Land.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

Eric Karabell and Mark Simon gathered for Monday's Baseball Today podcast. Here's what went down:

1. Justin Verlander's near no-no and Max Scherzer's 15-strikeout game topped the weekend's pitching performances. Who else had great games?

2. Aroldis Chapman named Reds closer, but does this move really make Cincinnati any better?

3. Lance Berkman is heading to the DL, so it's time to talk about Matt Adams.

4. Power rankings!

5. Ridiculous question of the week!

All that and more, including a look ahead to Monday's game. King Felix versus Yu Darvish!

The Cardinals didn’t even have Lance Berkman back for a full week’s worth of games -- he started in just five of seven games -- before a troubling knee injury forced him back to the DL. Wasn't Berkman supposed to stay healthier after moving back to first base?

Berkman’s 2011 season was so remarkable a repeat going to be tough to achieve. To Berkman’s credit, when he’s been healthy enough to play, he’s hit, so the Cards’ offseason decision to reinvest in him after letting Albert Pujols walk away makes as much sense as ever.

The real problem is a question of timing. Losing Berkman (again) mimics the Cards’ experience with getting back and then losing Allen Craig. If Berkman was supposed to be the key bopper in the middle of the lineup, Craig is supposed to be the one-size-fits-all solution to any problem at the corners. Now, with Craig and Berkman down, and starting center fielder Jon Jay out, suddenly St. Louis isn’t just down their best bat or their ninth regular bat. They are now forced to rely again on their third- or fourth-best choice for first base.

And here, as it was earlier this season, they aren’t in the worst situation. Thanks to a farm system that has cranked out so many quality supporting players, a product of their outstanding blend of scouting and statistical evaluation on the player development front. Matt Carpenter's .853 OPS might be better than expected, but it reflects the quality of the bat that was his meal ticket in the first place. After Berkman’s latest trip to the DL, the Cards summoned up 2009 23rd-rounder Matt Adams, another example of their success drafting in the mid to late rounds during Jeff Luhnow’s tenure as head of player development.

With Jay out, they're using four outfielders in a temporary platoon situation. Skip Schumaker moving back from second base is reasonable enough as fixes go, and it provides the Cards with a conveniently timed defensive improvement in the infield. More natural infielders, Daniel Descalso and Tyler Greene, will replace Schumacker. Picking him up against lefties will be fourth outfielder aspirant Shane Robinson. The Cards won’t get top offense out of this platoon, but they won’t get much less from what they should have expected from Jay over the course of the season. There also shouldn’t be too steep a defensive penalty to pay.

What they’re getting from the center fielders won’t make up for what they’ve lost with having to replace both Berkman and Craig at first base, however. The organizational depth that has served them so well this early reflects their overall strength, but the Cardinals can’t afford to lose hitters as good as Berkman and Craig and not expect to miss a few beats on offense. Now that they’ve come back to the pack, the longer this offensive shortcoming lasts, the longer it should tell over time.

Eric and I recorded this on Monday. It goes with this post on the NL's best team. You can go vote in the poll on that page, but here are the results through nearly 8,000 votes:

Braves: 40 percent
Dodgers: 25 percent
Cardinals: 14 percent
Nationals: 11 percent
Other: 10 percent

First base: No Kemp, plenty Kershaw. It's too early in the season to call any series a "big" series, but considering the Diamondbacks entered Monday 8.5 games behind the Dodgers and Matt Kemp didn't play for the first time since Aug. 18, 2009 ... well, it's kind of an important two-game showdown for them. Monday's game was a battle of aces with Clayton Kershaw facing Ian Kennedy and featured some extracurricular fireworks. The last time Kershaw faced Arizona, last September, he was ejected for plunking Gerardo Parra, who had longingly admired a home run the previous night. On Kershaw's first at-bat, Kennedy threw behind him.

But Kershaw got the final word. He later introduced Kennedy's nose to the smell of some inside heat and pitched seven shutout innings in L.A.'s 3-1 victory. Arizona just can't produce many runs right now. Paul Goldschmidt, Ryan Roberts and Willie Bloomquist are still struggling at the plate and Justin Upton's OPS continues to hover under .700. He did get a first-inning single off Kershaw -- his first hit off Kershaw after going 0-for-18. If there's good news for the Diamondbacks, it's that they owned an identical 15-21 record last season after 36 games. They even dropped to 15-22, before turning their season around, winning 15 of their next 17 games.

Second base: Reds scare. So the St. Louis Cardinals have outscored their opponents by 63 runs, they have an MVP candidate in Carlos Beltran, six guys in Monday's lineup hitting over .300 (none of whom were Beltran, Matt Holliday or David Freese) and three starters with an ERA under 2.50. The Cincinnati Reds have outscored their opponents by six runs, have three starters with an ERA over 4.00, five guys in Monday's lineup hitting under .260 and only one hitter who has more than nine walks. And, somehow, the Reds are just 1.5 games behind the Cardinals.

Third base: Friedrich fantastic, Tulo not. Rockies rookie Christian Friedrich once again looked terrific in his second major league start, striking out 10 and allowing just a Gregor Blanco home run in seven innings. Friedrich, the one-time top prospect who struggled in Double-A the past two seasons, had pitched well in Triple-A this year and now has 17 strikeouts and just two walks over his first two starts. Friedrich's effort went for naught as the Giants scored two runs in the eighth off the Colorado bullpen, dropping the Rockies to 13-21. Troy Tulowitzki continues to struggle in May (he hasn't homered since April 27), was hit by Dexter Fowler's foul ball while standing in the dugout and then left the game after limping down the line on an infield single.

Tweet of the night. Speaking of that inside pitch to Kershaw ...

Not surprisingly both #Dbacks Montero and Kennedy said they were just trying to go inside on Kershaw bc he has a "long swing".

— Steve Gilbert (@SteveGilbertMLB) May 15, 2012

Heading into the weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals appeared to be the class of the National League, but the Atlanta Braves marched into town and swept the Cardinals while scoring 23 runs in three games. With the Philadelphia Phillies struggling and the Miami Marlins recovering from an 8-14 start, which team is the best in the NL right now?

The Los Angeles Dodgers own the best record in the majors -- a half-game better than the Texas Rangers -- but it doesn't seem as if a lot of people believe in them just yet.

Do you?

Los Angeles Dodgers (23-11, plus-34 run differential)
The case for: They have the best player in the NL in Matt Kemp, but even last week, when Kemp battled a sore hamstring and had just four hits, the Dodgers had an .869 team OPS and went 5-1. Catcher A.J. Ellis is third in the majors with a .462 OBP, Mark Ellis has a .385 OBP, and Andre Ethier has a .364 OBP. That's four guys who have been getting on base, which means the Dodgers are a relative offensive juggernaut. They have the best pitching in the NL, Chris Capuano and Ted Lilly are a combined 10-0 and fit perfectly as fly ball pitchers at Dodger Stadium, where the club is 15-3. Overall, the rotation ERA of 2.91 is second in the league.

The case against: C'mon, Ellis and Elllis sounds more like a law firm than the meat of a championship lineup. They're getting little offense from shortstop Dee Gordon and third baseman Juan Uribe, and their left fielders have combined for one home run. Capuano and Lilly aren't this good, and the team has played a pretty soft schedule thus far with only two series (Braves and Nationals) against teams above .500. And this Kemp hamstring injury could be more serious than just him missing a day or two.

Atlanta Braves (22-13, plus-34 run differential)
The case for: The best team in the NL has to be in the NL East, and the Braves showed they're that team with their weekend sweep in St. Louis. They lead the NL in runs scored, and Brian McCann hasn't really started to hit. Thanks to the dominant duo of Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters, the Braves haven't lost a game they've led after six innings. Atlanta has also played just 13 of its first 35 games at home. The fact that the rotation ranks 15th in ERA is actually a good sign: They're nine games over .500 despite that.

The case against: Actually, the struggles of the rotation aren't a good sign. Brandon Beachy has been the team's only reliable starter, and even his numbers are a little flukey, with a .220 batting average on balls in play and just one home run allowed in 45 innings. The bullpen is 9-1 and has held leads, but the signs say that luck won't continue. Kimbrel, Venters and Eric O'Flaherty are allowing runners at a much higher rate than 2011. Chipper Jones has 22 RBIs in 25 games; that RBI rate can't continue.

@dschoenfield Braves.Timely hitting throughout lineup, Very good starting pitching, Top RPs 7-9 inns, good health and mostly youthful team

— Lyle Wood (@wood_back) May 14, 2012

Washington Nationals (21-13, plus-15 run differential)
The case for: That rotation has a chance to be one of the best we've seen in a long time. So far it has compiled a 2.31 ERA and allowed opponents to hit just .202. Ross Detwiler has a 1.02 WHIP, and that's the worst of the five starters. The team is eight games over .500 even though Mike Morse hasn't played a game, Ryan Zimmerman missed 13 games, and Jayson Werth is on the DL. If they can hold things together until Morse and Werth return, the lineup could be solid.

The case against: Baseball isn't 90 percent pitching ... or even 75. The Nats are averaging 3.56 runs per game, 14th in the NL, and that's likely to get worse without Werth and Wilson Ramos. Bryce Harper is exciting, but he has just a .663 OPS. The injuries are just going to be too much to overcome, and once the starting rotation falls back a little bit, so will the team's win-loss record.

@dschoenfield Washington #Nationals (21-13) -- best starting rotation and playing well in spite of hobbled hitters.

— Chris Rinaldi (@Chris_Rinaldi) May 14, 2012

St. Louis Cardinals (20-14, plus-65 run differential)
The case for: That run differential shows that St. Louis has been the league's most dominant team. Its offense is so deep that Mike Matheny will have trouble finding regular playing time for Allen Craig, who has five home runs and 16 RBIs in 10 games since returning from the DL. Carlos Beltran has more home runs than Kemp, Rafael Furcal has a .447 OBP, and Jon Jay is hitting .347. The Cardinals lead the NL in batting average, home runs, OBP and slugging. Then there's the pitching staff. Lance Lynn, Jake Westbrook and Kyle Lohse each have ERAs of 2.08 or better. Lynn, in particular, looks legit with a power fastball and curveball, and Westbrook and Lohse are strike-throwing machines. Just wait until Adam Wainwright gets going and Chris Carpenter possibly returns.

The case against: Despite that run differential, the Cards have just the fourth-best record. In a sense, you get the idea they blew some of this early offense and didn't build up a 24-10 record or such. They've also played a soft schedule, playing almost exclusively within the weak NL Central. Other than two series against the 17-16 Reds, the only .500 team they played was the Braves, and they were swept. Do you really believe in Lohse and Westbrook. And we don't have to mention that Furcal and Jay aren't going to hit .383 and .347 all season.

@dschoenfield The St. Louis Cardinals because the pitching staff is overachieving, & Furcal and Beltran are providing veteran leadership.

— Zach Loesl (@mmm9731) May 14, 2012

As baseball fans, we love getting worked up about the next big thing. And as someone who follows a Twitter account that alerts me when Bryce Harper is about to come to the plate, I am well aware that I am as guilty of this as anyone.

The problem with this line of thinking is that we sometimes take for granted the older guys because we've been watching them for so long. We really shouldn't. Exhibit A is Carlos Beltran, who put on a show against the Atlanta Braves on Friday and is playing about as well as he ever has at the age of 35.

The switch-hitter went 4-for-5 with two homers, a double, a triple, a walk and 4 RBIs, and even though Atlanta won 9-7 in 12 innings, Beltran was the story. He is now hitting .307/.410/.658 on the young season. No, he's not the basestealing threat he once was, and he's been relegated to right field, but the sweet swing is still there, and the Cardinals are reaping the benefits after signing him to a two-year, $26 million deal last winter that now seems like the steal of the century.

Beltran missed much of the 2009 and 2010 seasons with a variety of injuries while playing for the New York Mets. And even though he posted an .872 OPS with stellar defense and baserunning over the life of the seven-year, $119 million deal he signed with the club before the 2005 season, New York fans never warmed to him due to his aloof nature and the fact that he took a called third strike to end Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. (I've never really understood this, by the way. It was a great pitch and he was fooled. Taking a harmless hack wouldn't have changed anything.)

But ever since the start of last season Beltran has been locked in. He hit .300 with 22 homers for the Mets and San Francisco Giants in 2011, and this year he has taken his game to a level unseen since 2006, when he tied the Mets' franchise record with 41 home runs and posted a .982 OPS. As ESPN Insider contributor Dave Cameron noted on Twitter earlier this evening, he's basically matching Matt Kemp in terms of performance with a fraction of the hype.

St. Louis fans have a reputation for embracing their players in a way that many other fan bases don't, and here's hoping they are fully appreciating the greatness of Beltran in a way that many New York fans never seemed to. Frankly, we all should be appreciating him more because he's one of the best players of this generation.

With two more stolen bases he will become just the eighth player in baseball history with more than 300 homers and 300 steals, and with another couple of seasons of All-Star level production -- which is not out the question considering his current level of play -- he should have a strong Hall of Fame case. However, we know he can't keep up his current production forever, so let's enjoy it while it's here instead of focusing too much on who might be coming next.

First: Christian Friedrich made the first start of his career for the Rockies in what might be considered close to the definitive soft landing: Facing a Padres team with the worst record in the National League, in Petco, against the 15th-ranked offense in the circuit. Whether you want to use plain-old runs scored or OPS+ or wOBA or what have you, if there’s one thing the Padres don’t have, it’s offense, park-adjusted or not. Which takes nothing away from a nifty first start. The Rockies lefty gave up just two runs on six baserunners in six innings, striking out seven. In beating the Padres he did something the more highly touted Drew Pomeranz and Alex White had not. As GM Dan O’Dowd tries to work around a couple of injuries in the rotation, it was a nice way to break Friedrich in.

Second: Ervin Santana got run support for only the second time this season, as the Angels tripled the total number of runs they’ve scored on the season for him by putting six runs on the board. Santana had not seen a single run scored during his ballgames -- whether he was in the game or in the showers -- since April 8 against the Royals. He’s now gotten a whopping nine runs of support across seven individual starts, and all of those runs were scored against the two worst teams in the league, because his club was shut out by the Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, Indians and Athletics in the other five.

Third: Since coming off the disabled list, Allen Craig has been back in action for exactly one week’s worth of games, but he’s already hit three times as many home runs as a certain famous former Cardinal has for the Angels, having added a third shot on the season against the D-backs on Wednesday night. He’s slugging .778 and batting cleanup between Matt Holliday and David Freese -- and not even that will guarantee him any kind of job security before the week is out, because with Lance Berkman due back from the DL on Friday, he’s doomed to get shunted back into last year’s “best bench bat in baseball” job he held for the world champs. Albert who?

Home plate: The tweet of the night goes to Sean Ahmed, a fellow University of Chicago grad with good taste in broadcasters:

vin scully: "i don't trust my memory." me: "I DO. PLEASE GO ON."

— Sean (@sean_ahmed) May 10, 2012

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

Baseball’s top sluggers were in the news as Keith Law and I gathered to record Wednesday’s Baseball Today podcast as one of them kept on hitting home runs Tuesday and the other didn’t get the chance.

1. Kudos to Josh Hamilton for a record-tying performance in Baltimore, but what does his excellent start to the season mean for his future contract negotiations?

2. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, another poor managerial decision -- they’re everywhere, frankly -- takes the bat out of Matt Kemp’s able hands. We talk about bad managers, contract extensions and more.

3. Do managers really listen to their front office, or is it like the scene in "Moneyball" with Art Howe and Billy Beane? Law shares some inside information.

4. Emailers have thoughts about Pittsburgh’s front office, the Cardinals’ run differential, Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and the Olympics.

5. Keith’s top 100 prospects are posted and he gives insight to strengths, weaknesses and other themes to watch about the upcoming draft.

So download and listen to Wednesday’s Baseball Today podcast, and not only because we tell you Hamilton can’t repeat the feat in Baltimore. For many other reasons!

The St. Louis Cardinals don't have the best record in the National League, but by one measure -- perhaps one even more important than win-loss record this early in a season -- they've easily been the most dominant team.

The Cardinals own a run differential of plus-62 runs -- that's greater than the sum of the Nationals (+14), Dodgers (+12), Braves (+27), Reds (+5) and Giants (+3). St. Louis is second in runs scored (to Atlanta) and second in runs allowed (to Washington). The Cardinals have done this despite the spring training injury to Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright's slow start coming back from Tommy John surgery (a strong effort on Sunday lowered his ERA to 5.61), Lance Berkman's DL stint (he's missed 21 games) and Allen Craig's late return from offseason knee surgery (he just returned last week).

The accolades run deep -- Jon Jay leads the league with a .392 average, David Freese is fifth with 24 RBIs, Rafael Furcal has a .402 on-base percentage -- but credit for the hot start has to begin with Lance Lynn and Kyle Lohse. The two are a combined 9-1 with a 1.88 ERA in 11 starts. Lynn, who starts Monday night against the Diamondbacks, ranks fifth in the NL with a 1.60 ERA; Lohse ranks 11th with 2.11 ERA.

When pitching coach Dave Duncan resigned from his post in January to spend more time with his wife Jeanine (who had a brain tumor removed last August), there were concerns the pitching staff would suffer without Tony La Russa's right-hand man. The early returns under Derek Lilliquist are positive as the Cardinals have a 3.08 ERA and have walked just 58 batters, fewest in the NL. Last year's staff posted a 3.74 ERA and also relied on throwing strikes -- the Cardinals walked the fourth-fewest hitters in the league -- but that staff also featured Carpenter as rotation anchor.

That's what makes the first months for Lynn and Lohse so important (Jake Westbrook is also 3-2 with a 2.19 ERA). Lynn's numbers may be the most surprising since he pitched out of the bullpen as a rookie last season after getting called up from Triple-A (he still qualifies as a rookie). He pitched so well in relief -- 40 strikeouts in 32.1 innings, plus a dominant 5.2 scoreless innings against the Brewers in the NLCS after missing more than a month with a strained oblique -- that many forgot that he was groomed as a starter in the minor leagues. The 39th overall pick in 2008 out of the University of Mississippi, Lynn threw hard but never posted dominant numbers as a starter in the minors. When Carpenter went down, there was speculation the Cardinals would move to sign free agent Roy Oswalt. Instead, they promoted Lynn to the rotation

All he's done in winning his first five starts is allow six runs and hold opponents to a .167 batting average. Two things stand out for the burly right-hander: He's maintained his velocity (after averaging 93.2 mph on his fastball in relief, it's held at 92.4 so far as a starter) and he's thrown strikes. He's cut his walk rate from 2.9 per nine innings as a reliever to 1.9 as a starter (he averaged three walks per nine in 12 starts in Triple-A in 2011). Lynn relies on three different fastballs: a four-seamer that touches 95, a two-seam sinker and an occasional cutter. He mixes in a curve and an infrequent changeup that he uses against left-handers, but relies primarily on his various fastballs, which he throws about 70 percent of the time. In the minors, he relied a lot on his sinker, but he used his four-seamer more out of the pen last year, when he would crank it up to 97-98 mph at times. He seems to have taken that philosophy with him when he starts a game.

Looking at his heat map for 2012, you can see his game plan: feed left-handers on the outside corner, while throwing a lot of fastballs up and away to right-handers.



This is where we have point out that four of Lynn's five starts have come against the Cubs and Pirates. Nonetheless, right now this is a confident pitcher who trusts his stuff. If he continues to pound that outside corner against left-handers, I don't see why Lynn's success can't continue. After his last win, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny praised his pitcher's mental toughness, telling MLB.com, "I think he was just following along what we've been preaching, and that is one pitch at a time." Cubs manager Dale Sveum described Lynn's fastball as a heavy fastball and praised his ability to move it around the strike zone. What you have is a young starter with a power pitcher's body starting to pitching like a power potential. His upside is clearly much higher than a year ago, maybe who can slot in as a No. 2 starter.

Lohse is a little more difficult to analyze, since his raw stuff is nowhere near impressive as Lynn's. His average fastball clocks in at 89 mph. After the journeyman right-hander posted a 5.54 ERA with the Cardinals in 2009-10, his career appeared to be in jeopardy, especially after forearm surgery in May of 2010. He had something called "compartment syndrome," in which a sheath covering a muscle in the forearm doesn't allow it expand. The injury is apparently extremely rare in baseball. When Giants pitcher Noah Lowry suffered the same injury in 2008, the Giants failed to find another pitcher who had had the same injury. Lowry never returned to the majors.

Lohse ended up returning in August and then went 14-8, 3.39 last year, the lowest ERA of his career. In 2012, he's been even better, as opponents are hitting .209 against him. Always a guy who relied on control, he's cut down on his walks to two per nine innings.

So what's been the difference for Lohse in 2011-12 as compared to 2009-10, besides better health? Since his fastball is hardly overpowering, it's all about location and keeping hitters off-balance with his two-seam sinking fastball, slider, changeup and occasional curve. Look at the heat map below and you can see the fine line between Lohse succeeding and Lohse getting hammered. On the left, Lohse's pitch location in 2009-10; on the right, Lohse's location in 2011-12.



The differences are slight but noticeable; he's catching more of the inside corner against lefties/outside corner against righties and less of the center of the plate. He's also pitching down in the zone a little more.

Lohse doesn't throw as many groundballs as Lynn, so a key for him is keeping the ball in the park. After not allowing a home run in his first four starts, he gave up two against the Brewers on April 28 and a three-run shot to Houston's Jose Altuve in his only loss on May 4. Like Lynn, Lohse has benefited from a low BABIP so far and also high strand rates, so we can obviously expect both pitchers to regress from their hot starts. That may be true of the St. Louis staff as a whole: Despite its early success, it ranks just 15th in the NL strikeouts.

So, yes, maybe regression will happen, but it's also true that Lynn and Lohse make the Cardinals' rotation a lot stronger than it appeared when the club left Florida at the end of spring training.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

Eric Karabell and I have a new segment we're calling SweetSpot Stock Watch, where we rationally discuss and occasionally argue about a few players. Today's edition: Red Sox prospect Will Middlebrooks, Cardinals starters Lance Lynn and Kyle Lohse, red-hot Bryan LaHair and Orioles pitcher Jake Arrieta, coming off his dominant effort against the Yankees on Thursday night. And don't forget to check out Eric's fantasy baseball blog on ESPN Insider!

Baseball is awesome. Did we need to say anything else? Do we need to hire Terry Cashman to write a ballad about this day? Do we need to pen epic poems about Chipper Jones and Jered Weaver and Bryce Harper and the intentional walk?

Man, I need to catch my breath.

How do you sum up the wildest game of the season so far? I guess pretty simply: The Phillies, a team that scores runs with about the same frequency of a Serie A soccer team, totaled 13 runs ... in a game Roy Halladay started ... and lost.

The Phillies led 6-0, the Braves scored six off Halladay in the fifth (including a Brian McCann grand slam) and then took an 8-6 lead (the first time he's allowed eight runs in a game since Aug. 24, 2009). The Phillies surged back ahead 12-8, the Braves took a 13-12 lead with five runs in the bottom of the eighth (as Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon apparently isn't allowed to pitch more than one inning or three days in a row), the Phillies tied in the ninth on Shane Victorino's two-out infield single, and then ...

Well, then, Larry Wayne Jones stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 11th inning. He hammered a 2-2 slider from Brian Sanches down the right-field line, but it hooked a few feet line. I tweeted, "Dang, a Chipper walk-off would have been pretty cool on this wild day."

Two pitches later, he crushed a 3-2, 88-mph meatball over the center-field fence, watching the ball fly away into the Atlanta evening and flipping his bat in a dismissive swagger. "I may be 40 years old with creaky knees, but don't try and slip that mediocre slop by me," he seemed to say.

Braves 15, Phillies 13.

It was the 458th regular-season home run in his career. Few have felt sweeter, especially since the Braves had lost eight straight games to the Phillies.

"I wish everyone could experience that feeling right there," Jones said on postgame on-field TV interview, trying to catch his breath after enduring the mosh pit at home plate. "That game, without a doubt, takes the cake as far as my career goes. You figure with Halladay and [Tommy] Hanson, it's going to be a 2-1 game."

When Jones says he's never seen a game like it, you know what it was something amazing.

And here are a few more adventures from not just another Wednesday in early May:

• Oh, yeah, as I was finishing this piece, Jered Weaver was flirting with a no-hitter through the sixth … seventh … into the eighth … and he did it. You know, Weaver is pretty good at baseball. The highlight: MLB Network cameras showed Weaver leaving the dugout in the eighth inning to use the bathroom. How do you risk a no-hitter by leaving the bench? As he said after the game, "I had to pee so bad."
• In an afternoon tilt at Coors Field, we saw the worst call of the season (Jerry Hairston Jr. was called out on this play) and Carlos Gonzalez homered twice off Clayton Kershaw (only the second time Kershaw has allowed two home runs to one player in a game, Adam Dunn having done so in 2010). But that stuff was merely a prelude to a wacky ninth inning. With two outs and a runner on first, Jim Tracy elected to intentionally walk Matt Kemp to pitch to Dee Gordon. You can debate the merits of the decision -- Kemp's home run rate was three times that of Gordon's extra-base hit rate, and extreme fly ball pitcher Rafael Betancourt was on the mound -- but Gordon hit a soft liner into right-center. Third-base coach Tim Wallach sent Kemp, who should have been thrown out by 10 feet, but Troy Tulowitzki biffed the relay with a wormburner throw home. Game tied and Tracy looked like the goat until the ancient Jason Giambi hit a three-run homer off Scott Elbert in the bottom of the ninth. How awesome is that the Giambino is still swatting game-winning home runs at age 41?
• The Nationals ended a five-game losing streak in dramatic, walk-off fashion as well. Wunderkind Harper -- who had just missed his first major league homer earlier in the game with a double off the top of the wall in right-center -- led off the bottom of the ninth with another double to center, his third hit of the game. With Nationals fans dreaming delirious dreams of Harper's future, J.J. Putz then struck out Wilson Ramos and Rick Ankiel. But Ian Desmond blasted a 1-1, 93-mph fastball over the fence in left-center. Only one of the best wins in Nationals' history.
• The Royals looked like they were going to beat Justin Verlander, leading 2-0 in the eighth, only to have Brennan Boesch tie the game with a two-run homer. So they settled for a victory off Joaquin Benoit in the ninth, the go-ahead run scoring on Chris Getz's two-out infield single.
• Jake Arrieta threw eight shutout innings against the Yankees in one of the best outings of the year for a pitcher: 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 BB 9 SO. The Orioles took two of three in the series, they're 16-9, and Baltimore fans are starting to believe.
• Jeff Suppan made his first major league start since 2010 and tossed five shutout innings as the Padres blanked the Brewers 5-0.
• Johnny Damon played his first game for the Indians, and while he went 0-for-3 with a walk, having Damon back in the bigs is certainly worthy of a round of applause.
• Carlos Beltran had seven RBIs through three innings and for a time we could conjure up scenarios where he would drive in 10 ... 11 ... maybe even a record-tying 12 runs.
• Lost in the excitement of Chipper's dramatic walk-off homer, Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz also had seven RBIs.

One day in baseball. I say we do it again.

Follow David Schoenfield on Twitter @dschoenfield.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

First base: That’s where Allen Craig was playing for the Cardinals on Tuesday night, not just giving the Birds back the ninth bat they’ve missed, but more importantly giving them an immediate substitute for the still-injured Lance Berkman. Much like fellow postseason hero David Freese, Craig showed he also hasn’t missed a beat from last October, pelting a pair of singles in his first game back, and contributing to the Cardinals’ bit of 10-7 stompery over the reliably feeble Pirates.

Second base: Jarrod Parker’s second start for the Oakland A’s was perhaps even better than his first against the White Sox last week. Parker shut down the Red Sox in a 5-3 win, going slightly deeper into the game (two batters faced and one out), throwing just 98 pitches while delivering a 6.2-4-1-1-2-4 line with no home runs. So while Trevor Cahill was doing just fine mowing down Nationals in last night’s D-backs spoiler of Bryce Harper’s home debut, the primary prospect he was acquired with was giving Athletics fans a reason to forget the past and embrace something more tangible than a future in San Jose.

Third base: As the Book of Armaments in Monty Python’s Holy Grail reminds us, three is the number that shall be counted before big ’splosions go off, and that’s pretty much what Jed Lowrie did for the Astros on Tuesday night, plating a pair with his third home run of the season while also drawing three walks. In the two weeks-plus since his return from the DL, Lowrie has been the multifaceted offensive terror that GM Jeff Luhnow’s crew envisioned when they acquired him from the Red Sox. So just a month into his Astros career, you can say they’ve already gotten the full Lowrie experience: A trip to the DL, power, patience, and enough good work afield to make you think his staying at shortstop makes sense after all.

Home plate: The tweet of Tuesday goes to Orioles reliever Darren O’Day, who was partially responsible for the numerical feat he chose to celebrate social mediatically:

Congrats to Buck for his 1000th victory. That's a lot of W's. Like 20 a year for 50 years!

— Darren O'Day (@DODay56) May 2, 2012

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.