MLB

On Friday night, Fenway Park turned into the Wild West. Scores were settled, barbs were thrown and threats of future retaliation echoed through the night.

Lost in the ugliness of the Arizona Diamondbacks' 4-14 start to the season and the team's marquee hiring of Tony La Russa has been the gradual growth and development of the D-backs' young core position players.

MLB award season talk won't really heat up until after the All-Star break, but it's never too early to check in on the top candidates to take home MVP and Cy Young honors here in 2014.

What follows is a look at the top five candidates for both honors in the National League and American League as things stand today and whether or not they are legitimate contenders or pretenders to actually take home the award at season's end.

Over the course of this weekend, almost every team in baseball will have played 54 games of the 2014 schedule. With one-third of the season nearly complete, it's a perfect time to assess the season thus far.

Since a season-opening tilt between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks in Australia, baseball has been back, offering new narratives and breakout performances on a weekly basis. Since the second week of play, Bleacher Report has been providing weekly analysis, with a combination of short-term reaction and long-term perspective. 

In baseball, the season can be broken down into three stages that form the backbone of each campaign, setting the stage for present and future success.

April and May serve as a tentative, conservative stage in which big moves rarely happen, managers don't sit on hot seats and executives spend countless hours preparing for the June draft. By the time August and September arrive, the work is done and the best teams rise to the top.

The working title for this column was simply "Oscar Taveras: 'Bout Damn Time."

David Ortiz says he has lost respect for David Price.

In the process, a lot of people have lost respect for Ortiz.

After the two teams got in a scuffle last week, the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays cleared the benches once again on Friday.

UPDATE: Saturday, May 31 at 1:55 p.m. ET

David Ortiz was not happy with Price's pitch, and he had some choice words to say to the Rays pitcher, according to CSNNE.com:

Since getting swept by Joe Torre and the New York Yankees in the 1998 World Series, the San Diego Padres have only played playoff ball twice.

Even on those two occasions that they managed to take an underpaid club and over-perform enough to swing the bats in October, they’ve only been victorious once.

Many of the top-ranked prospects in the Seattle Mariners organization have already reached the major leagues, but a few more could be on the way shorty.

The Mariners have already had James Jones, Dominic Leone and Roenis Elias make their major league debuts in 2014, and each has experienced some success. It should be only a matter of a few weeks before Chris Taylor and Carson Smith join them to fill a couple of holes on the roster.