AL Central

Brett Lawrie, 2B Toronto Blue Jays (23 percent owned in Yahoo, 22.7 percent in ESPN)

Current Stat Line: 2/4, 1 RBI

Brett Lawrie has finally arrived! He tore up AAA pitching this season going .353/64/18/61/13. In my opinion, the call-up should have happened much earlier—but it didn't. Then Lawrie suffered a hand injury on May 31st which kept him out of the game for a while. Now that it is completely healed, expect him to rake for the Blue jays.

For years under the direction of Tom Kelly, we constantly heard that the baseball season was a marathon and not a sprint.

"Take it one game at a time" was the mantra constantly repeated to the players, media and fans during Kelly's tenure as manager from 1986 to 2001.

Michael Cuddyer will not leave the Minnesota Twins before the end of the season via trade, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

He may walk when his contract expires at the end of the season, and if the team's announced intention to re-sign him falls through.

The Twins looked like they were going to escape Friday's game with a 1-0 win.

Nick Blackburn pitched seven solid innings.

"I think today everything was just down," said Blackburn, who had struggled earlier this month, "and that hasn’t been the case for probably the last four or five starts."

Joe Nathan took care of business in the eighth.

"He threw the ball very well," said manager Ron Gardenhire after the game. "He’s throwing the ball good."

Some of baseball's greatest players are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. However, certain great players have not gotten in for some crazy reason. 

Usually the reason why these players never get in is simply because there were other players who out shined them. Hopefully, these men will finally get the credit they deserve. 

This slideshow will list the 10 players that deserve a one-way trip to Cooperstown.

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The Detroit Tigers have a glaring hole at second base this season. 

Will Rhymes, Scott Sizemore, and Ryan Raburn haven't fared well in their time at second.  The Tigers' front office suggests that they will address the position internally (likely with the return of Carlos Guillen from the DL) rather than with a trade. 

It’s never easy to predict when a professional athlete will break down physically. Chalk it up to genetics perhaps. Some players are freaks of nature. Who can explain how Brett Favre played one of the most physically punishing positions in sports with Lou Gehrig-like durability?

Why is it that the quarterback Favre played 19 seasons and never missed a start, while basketball player Greg Oden is like a man made of salt left out in the rain?

With the trade deadline only a few weeks away, there are rumors flying left and right, some of which involve all of the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals being traded to other teams.  And there is one team that needs to make a move right now.

That team is the Detroit Tigers.

The rookie crop in the American League Central Division is a little weak in rookies right now. The strongest prospects in the division are Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer and Lonnie Chisenhall, but they are still maturing in the minors.

Of the rookies that have been playing in the majors, most are struggling. None of the current players have made much of an impact on the Rookie of the Year race.

Here are the last three Rookie of the Year winners out of the AL Central:

Angel Berroa, Kansas City Royals—2003

Carlos Beltran, Kansas City Royals—1999

We are now about a month into the season, and there have been a ton of surprises that nobody saw coming. 

Two of last season's worst teams are atop their division. Teams who made major acquisitions in the offseason has struggled. Players who have been around the league for what seems forever are still hitting the ball like they are 20 years old.

There have been so many things we all didn't see coming that makes this season so exciting.

Let's now look at the 10 biggest surprises so far of the 2011 season.