Opinion

Rookie relief pitcher Dominic Leone has earned a spot in the Seattle Mariners bullpen and could soon be moving into a more critical role for the team.

Since making his debut April 6, the 22-year-old right-hander has excelled as yet another power arm in Seattle’s bullpen. In 19 appearances, Leone has a 1-0 record with a 1.57 ERA and the peripheral statistics to suggest he should be able to continue pitching at a high level.

After an 18-year career in the majors, Johnny Damon feels he was forced to leave the game of baseball before he was ready to hang up the spikes. The reason for that, according to Damon, is because he never used performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).

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. 

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.

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.

The Minnesota Twins are a halfway decent team in 2014. After three straight 90-loss seasons, that'll do nicely for progress.

But who knows? Maybe halfway decent isn't Minnesota's ceiling in 2014. Perhaps the Twins can be better than that. Perhaps they can even be good enough to make some noise in an AL Central division that's widely viewed as the playground of the Detroit Tigers.