AL East

Not since the late Early Wynn pitched for Cleveland in a comeback to win 300 games has there been a pitching staff with two starters who look like the monsters who ate Cleveland.

Bartolo Colon and C.C. Sabathia, in combined British stone, would be heavy enough to build Stonehenge. Colon’s kind public relations guys claim he is still under 275 pounds. Sabathia is in the same ballpark as his fellow Yankee starter, but he hides it better.

As we head into the dog days of August, Jays fans are just now starting to get excited over the prospects of this team.

Usually around this time of year, it's the lull in the schedule where teams usually just try and play out the string until September, but for the Jays, things look completely different.

The Jays are fighting game in and game out, and are 57-55 in 102 games this season. The team was expected to maybe win at most 75 games this season, so they are definitely ahead of expectations.

New York Yankees starting pitcher C.C. Sabathia enters Saturday's start against the Boston Red Sox with a 16-5 record and 2.55 ERA.  He leads the majors in wins and has allowed just seven earned runs over his last eight starts.

It's not even an argument that the 31-year-old is the Most Valuable Player on his own team, as the club has won 18 of his 24 starts. 

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.

The Toronto Blue Jays have blown 18 saves this year while amassing a grand total of only 23. During Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Blue Jays blew two saves in extra innings, which cost them the game. Coming into the season, the Blue Jays had four former closers on the team, Jason Frasor, Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch and Octavio Dotel.

The Boston Red Sox have the best offense in baseball and it's not close. 

They hold the top spot in runs scored, average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. 

With the best offense in baseball, you'd expect the Red Sox to have a player in the MVP conversation, but not three.

Sixty years ago to this day, Joe DiMaggio recorded a hit in his 56th consecutive game, an MLB record that stands to this day. Although other hitters have come close (most notably Pete Rose’s 44-game streak in 1978), DiMaggio’s streak stands as one of the most immortal accomplishments of all time.

Now that Derek Jeter has reached (and then quickly surpassed) the 3,000-hit mark, I think it’s time to see how Robinson Cano’s young career stacks up to the New York Yankees captain's early years.

Jeter is halfway through his 17th season (16th full season), whereas Robinson Cano is halfway into just his seventh season in the bigs.

Derek Jeter deserves all the praise in the world today.

The New York Yankees captain, who has spent the past decade serving as the de facto face of Major League Baseball, joined the exclusive 3,000-hit club in thunderous fashion, with a solo home run to left field at Yankee Stadium off of Tampa Bay Rays All-Star David Price.

We are just a few days away from the All-Star break for the 2011 MLB season.

We've already seen some spectacular performances in the first half from expected names and some newcomers alike.

Like last season, baseball has been largely dominated by incredible pitching performances. Pitchers are going deeper into games than they have in recent memory and leaving most hitters in the dust.

There have been a few exceptions however.

With that in mind, here are the best (and just for fun, the worst) in the AL and NL this season