MLB Power Rankings - Major League Baseball

Power Rankings: Dodgers barely hold off Red Sox

Week:

ESPN.com

Although Manny Ramirez returns to the Los Angeles Dodgers' lineup on Friday, his former team is closing the gap on the No. 1 spot in the MLB Power Rankings.

In voting by our panel of experts, the Boston Red Sox finished only one vote behind the top-ranked Dodgers, who stretched their run of consecutive weeks atop the Power Rankings to seven. The Dodgers lost four of six games in the past week, while the Red Sox won four of six.

The No. 2 Red Sox lead a trio of AL East teams stacked up behind the Dodgers. The New York Yankees moved up a spot to No. 3, and the Tampa Bay Rays, who've won five straight, climbed four spots to No. 4. For their great week, the Rays are the U.S. Army Team of the Week.

One of our panelists, Enrique Rojas of ESPNDeportes.com, wrote the comments below. Meanwhile, you can rank the teams yourself.

Tune in to "Baseball Tonight" every Monday on ESPN to see the week's U.S. Army Power Rankings.

2009 Power Rankings: June 29
	RK (LW)	TEAM	REC	COMMENT
	1 (1)	Dodgers	48-28	The Dodgers still have the majors' best record despite four losses in their past five games.
	2 (2)	Red Sox	46-29	Kevin Youkilis' batting average has dropped 91 points (.404 to .313) since May 20.
	3 (4)	Yankees	43-32	A.J. Burnett (6-4, 3.93 ERA) is 2-1 with 0.44 ERA and 26 K's in 20.1 IP in his past three outings.
	4 (8)	Rays	42-35	Tropicana Field is the only stadium with at least a home run in every game (39) this year.
	5 (5)	Tigers	42-33	Fernando Rodney has converted 20 straight save chances and has not wasted an opportunity since Sept. 16, 2008.
	6 (7)	Angels	41-32	The Angels have the best record in interleague games (14-4), including a solid 8-1 on the road.
	7 (3)	Cardinals	41-36	Albert Pujols hits .523 against pitches in the middle of the plate. The rest of MLB hits .395.
	8 (10)	Brewers	40-35	Trevor Hoffman has allowed five runs in 4.2 innings in his past five outings.
	9 (11)	Giants	40-34	Closer Brian Wilson had 13 scoreless appearances in a row until he gave up three runs in two-thirds of an inning to Milwaukee on Saturday.
$Texas Rangers$	10 (6)	Rangers	40-34	The Rangers have two one-hit shutout losses this year, to San Diego on Sunday and at Detroit on May 19.
	10 (9)	Phillies	39-34	The Phillies have lost 11 of their past 15 games, but they have a MLB-best road record (26-12) this season.
	12 (13)	Blue Jays	41-36	Aaron Hill has 19 home runs in 334 at-bats, the same number of homers he had over the past two seasons combined.
	13 (15)	Rockies	40-35	The Rockies are 22-7 since the arrival of Jim Tracy as manager on May 29.
	14 (16)	Twins	39-38	Francisco Liriano is 2-1 with a 3.77 ERA and 30 K's in 31.0 IP in five outings in June.
	15 (19)	Mariners	39-36	Ichiro Suzuki leads the majors in batting at .375; the best average he's had for a season is .387 in 2000, his last year in Japan.
	16 (14)	Mets	37-37	David Wright, who began the season with 130 homers in 2,650 at-bats (1 HR/20.3 AB), only has four homers in 275 at-bats (1 HR/68.7 AB) this season.
	17 (12)	Cubs	35-37	The Cubs have been shut out seven times this year
	18 (18)	Marlins	38-39	Hanley Ramirez has 17 RBIs in his past seven games.
	19 (17)	Reds	37-37	The Reds went 6-9 in interleague games and now are 83-103 against American League clubs since interleague play began.
	20 (21)	White Sox	37-38	Alexei Ramirez has seven home runs and 13 RBIs in June, after totaling only three homers and 23 RBIs in April and May combined.
	21 (20)	Braves	35-40	Rookie Tommy Hanson (4-0, 2.48 ERA) has a 20.0-inning scoreless streak.
	22 (23)	Astros	35-38	The Astros are 17-11 since May 29.
	23 (22)	Orioles	34-41	After losing eight of nine games, the Orioles won nine of their next 14 games.
	24 (24)	Pirates	35-40	The Pirates went 8-7 in interleague games, their best record since doing the same in 2001.
	25 (27)	Royals	32-42	Zack Greinke (10-3, 1.95 ERA) has allowed two runs or fewer in 12 of his 16 outings.
	26 (25)	Athletics	31-43	Huston Street, who saved 94 games in four seasons with the Athletics, preserved the three Colorado victories against Oakland this weekend.
	27 (27)	Padres	33-41	Adrian Gonzalez has 24 home runs, but only two since June 3.
	28 (28)	Indians	31-46	The Indians have lost 10 of their past 12 games and finished 5-13 in interleague play.
	29 (29)	Diamondbacks	30-46	Where's the "D" in "D-backs"? Arizona leads all of baseball with 71 errors.
	30 (30)	Nationals	22-51	John Lannan went 3-0 with a 2.19 ERA and 13 K's in 37.0 IP in June.