Opinion

With nearly a quarter of the 2014 Major League Baseball season expired, the Washington Nationals sit two games over .500 and in second place in the National League East.

The good news, despite trailing the Atlanta Braves, is that the Nationals' deficit in the division is just 1.5 games. 

1. Marlins reeling while awaiting Jose Fernandez test results

Now Jose Fernandez is down.

It’s as if lightning struck right on Main Street. The lights are out, the town is dark and the smell of smoke is sickening. Damn. The last few months already have been hell on pitchers. Does the disabled list have to take every last blasted one of our young phenoms?

It's already been a bad year for elbows. The Tommy John surgeries have been plentiful, and all have been painful to some degree or another.

But none quite so much as the Tommy John operation that Jose Fernandez might be headed for. It would be a staggering blow felt not just by the Miami Marlins, but Major League Baseball, too.

Nyjer Morgan is back giving postgame interviews, and he is better than ever.

The San Francisco Giants are riding high, with an impressive 24-14 record on the season and a 7-3 record against their NL West division rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

Here are some bold (or, perhaps, not so bold) predictions as the Giants move forward with the 2014 season. 

On Friday, my colleague Joe Giglio wrote an article looking at five MLB players that would be national superstars if they played in big cities. Now we're going to take a look at the opposite end of the spectrum and select five guys who are overrated because of the fact that they play in big cities.

At the conclusion of play on May 8, almost half of the teams in baseball had played at least 35 games or more than 20 percent of the 2014 schedule. By the end of the weekend, every team will reach the 20 percent pole of the season, giving fans a chance to sit back and analyze what narratives to focus in on when summer approaches.

On a day-to-day basis, Major League Baseball players and teams can confound, confuse and frustrate. Yet, over a full season of innings, at-bats and plays, the best individuals and groups emerge to form the backbone of the sport. 

October baseball is still a long way off from even being on the horizon. But with a little over a month of games in the books, we at least have some idea which teams might be in the postseason. 

Provided they keep doing the things they've done. And get some lucky breaks along the way.

Which is what we're here to discuss.

What exactly is a "lucky break?" Solid question, Watson, and here's your answer: I'm defining it to mean something that might not happen but hopefully will.

The MLB player that is easily the easiest to root for is A.J. Pierzynski.

Wait? What? Dan Shaughnessy from the Boston Globe noted that he was voted 2012’s Most Hated Player in Baseball by fellow players in a Men’s Journal poll?

Nobody in baseball today knows the agony of just missing a no-hitter quite like Yu Darvish.

But here's something you can count on: It won't be that way forever.

If you missed what happened on Friday night, you missed the Texas Rangers ace flirt with history in an 8-0 drubbing of the Boston Red Sox. First by chasing a perfect game, and then by chasing a no-hitter.