The Mets stink this year. But on Tuesday, a glimmer of hope poked through the sky. The Mets swept the Braves in a doubleheader, winning by scores of 4-3 and 6-1. Each of the two games was started by a young phenom: game one by Matt Harvey, and game two by Zack Wheeler in his major league debut. Both men performed extremely well, with Harvey striking out 13 and no-hitting the Braves through six innings and Wheeler punching out seven and throwing six shutout frames. Now, if only New York could get some hitters...

PIC OF THE DAY

The aftermath of the Upton brothers colliding in the Braves outfield. (Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Red Sox 3, Rays 1. Game two of the doubleheader at Fenway Park today went just as poorly as the rain-soaked game one, which Tampa Bay lost 5-1. Felix Doubront dominated the Rays in game two, and it looked like a solo homer by Daniel Nava in the second inning would hold as the only run of the contest. Doubront handed the ball off to Andrew Bailey in the ninth, and he promptly allowed a game-tying solo homer to Kelly Johnson. Joel Peralta came in for Alex Torres in the ninth for Tampa Bay, and began the inning by walking Nava. That brought up Jonny Gomes, who launched the first pitch he saw from Peralta over the Green Monster to propel the BoSox to a 3-1 win, and their ninth win in 11 chances this season against Gomes' former team.

The New York Yankees have a 7-8 record in June, with six of those wins coming against the Mariners and Indians, and their schedule is about to get even more brutal. To make matters worse, the Yankees will have to tough it out without Kevin Youkilis and Mark Teixeira as they try to keep their heads above water in the AL East. Youkilis will need surgery for a herniated disk in his back and is expected to miss 10 to 12 weeks, while Teixeira has been placed on the DL for the second time this season after aggravating his right wrist last week.

New York's corner infielders heading into this season have combined to play just 43 games, hitting a total of five home runs in 181 plate appearances while striking out 50 times. They're also combining to make over $35 million this season. Youkilis was signed to a one year deal this winter and will be a free agent following the season, but Teixeira is locked in through the 2016 season at $23 million per year. Those two Yankees haven't been the only ones to deal with injuries, as the injury issues being dealt with by Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter have been well-covered this year. The Yankees have also gotten just eight games from Curtis Granderson this year and 17 from Francisco Cervelli.

This is Casey. He just graduated fifth grade. At his graduation, Casey gave a speech talking about a memory from this past year of school. The memory he chose to discuss was when the Giants won the World Series this past season. When Casey said it was his "least favorite memory", there were a couple of gasps in the crowd followed by some laughter and applause. Casey then talked about the entire school dressed in Giants gear taking a school picture, while he was watching and "decked out in every piece of Dodger gear I had". 

All of Casey's classmates chanted BEAT LA at him, and Casey closed his brief speech with a pretty inspirational quote. "But I'm a true fan, and true fans stand tall. True fans stay loyal to their team no matter what happens." Casey then said "Go Dodgers" before leaving the microphone to applause from the crowd.

Good for you, Casey. As a Braves fan living closer to Philadelphia, Washington, and New York than Atlanta, I've gotten my share of taunting throughout the years, and you just need to learn to roll with the punches and have a good attitude about things. It's pretty amazing that Casey as learned this lesson before reaching his teenage years, but I'm incredibly impressed by his attitude.

[Big League Stew via Reddit]

The San Diego Padres? Most of us predicted them to finish last in the NL West this year, right?

That division was expected to be a two-team race between the defending World Series champion San Francisco Giants and megabucks Los Angeles Dodgers. Early in the season, however, the surprise emergence of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies made the NL West a three-team battle. 

Take a look at those division standings right now, as of June 18. The NL West is currently a four-team scrum with the Padres jumping into the pile. 

As Joe Lucia wrote in Tuesday's Dugout Digest, the Padres notched their seventh straight win with a 5-3 victory over the Giants in 13 innings late Monday night. San Diego has won 10 of its past 12 games. So far in the month of June, this team is 11-5.

That surge has pushed the Padres to within one game of the NL West lead, a half-game ahead of San Francisco with a 36-34 record. San Diego hasn't just been pounding patsies either. That seven-game winning streak includes three-game sweeps of the division-leading D-Backs and the Atlanta Braves, who hold the second-best record in MLB.

So how has this happened? As of April 20, the Padres held last place in their division, eight games behind the Rockies. But since compiling a 10-15 record in the first month of the season, San Diego has gone 26-18 — winning nearly 60 percent of its games. 

The San Diego Padres beat the San Francisco Giants 5-3 in 13 innings last night. With the win, the Padres moved to third place in the NL West, just one game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks for first place in the division. The Padres have won seven in a row and are 11-5 in June, a nice bounceback considering that they started the season with a 10-16 April. Another team that's turned on the jets lately is the Toronto Blue Jays, who are now just three games under .500 and have won six straight. They're still in last place in the AL East, but the Jays are just three games behind the Rays in the AL East, and with a schedule over the rest of the month that includes ten games against AL East rivals, the Blue Jays could be a force heading into the All-Star Break.

PIC OF THE DAY

The Phillie Phanatic looks on as the Phillies grounds crew lifts his stalled out ATV over the fence at Citizens Bank Park. (Howard Smith-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Phillies 5, Nationals 4. Remember that one season where these two teams were hated rivals vying for the NL East crown? Things can change a lot in one offseason. Anyway, both teams are now under .500 after Philadelphia's win on Monday night, and the way this game transpired was typical of both teams' seasons. The Phillies jumped out to a 4-2 lead after five, with Ryan Howard actually delivering some capable offense for Philadelphia and sending Dan Haren to the showers after six innings. Mike Adams, who has been a colossal disappointment for the Phillies so far, allowed an RBI single to Ian Desmond in the eighth to cut the lead to a run. In the ninth, closer Jonathan Papelbon allowed a game-tying homer to Chad Tracy (of all people), and extra innings looked to be on the horizon. But Domonic Brown took care of that in the bottom of the inning, singling in Ben Revere to give the Phillies a walkoff win and keep teams in a state of flux in the NL East.

During Saturday night's Memphis-Albuquerque game, a brawl erupted in the fourth inning. Memphis (AAA affiliate of the Cardinals) reliever Jorge Rondon threw at the head of Albuquerque (AAA affiliate of the Dodgers) shortstop Justin Sellers after a home run by Jeremy Moore. Then, all hell broke loose. Rondon was immediately ejected, and Sellers gestured toward him and started walking towards the mound when both benches cleared.

The bullpens emptied, and when the pitchers all got on the field, things got interesting. Redbirds reliever Maikel Cleto got Moore in a headlock and the two tussled, eventually falling to the ground while the already-ejected Rondon seemingly peppered Moore's midsection with punches. There ended up being a whopping ten ejections from the mess, including Moore, Rondon, and Sellers, along with each team's manager (Lorenzo Bundy of the Isotopes and Ron Warner of the Redbirds), and a handful of former major league players: Rusty Ryal, Dee Gordon, Aaron Laffey, Rob Johnson, and Mitchell Boggs.

Believe it or not, there were no more incidents after the chaos in the fourth inning. Memphis would rally to tie the game at eight before Albuquerque went on to win 13-10, but the real story was the brawl. Cardinals management must have been taking a huge sigh of relief that top prospect Oscar Taveras wasn't prominently involved in this.

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This really bears repeating from earlier this week: the Texas Rangers are not playing good baseball right now. At all. The Rangers have lost six of seven games on their current 11 game homestand, with the only win coming last Monday against the Indians. Texas' typically high-powered offense has had issues putting runs on the board during this losing streak, totaling just eight runs in their last six losses. And guess what, Rangers fans? Things aren't going to get easier to close out the homestand, as the first place Oakland Athletics are coming to town before the Rangers close out the month with a road trip to the Bronx and St Louis before returning home to face the Reds. There's a very real possibility that Texas will be a .500 club at the end of the month, and Oakland will commence running away with the AL West.

PIC OF THE DAY

The Royals OF is either celebrating a win, or prepping for a hardcore game of ring around the rosie. (Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Day: Mets 4, Cubs 3. Chicago led 3-0 heading into the ninth inning, a fine outing by Matt Garza helping to shut down the New York offense. Carlos Marmol came on to close out the game in the ninth, and well...Carlos Marmol happened. Marlon Byrd led the inning off with a massive homer to cut Chicago's lead to two runs. Marmol then walked Lucas Duda and allowed a single to John Buck, putting the tying run on base with none out. Omar Quintanilla bunted the runners over to bring up recently recalled center fielder Kirk Nieuwenhuis, and he proceeded to smash a ball off the facade in right field to give New York the walkoff winner.

So, Bud Selig, about that whole Oakland A's moving to Santa Clara thing. Any chance we might be able to speed up the process? No rush or anything, but you might want to know that the O.co Coliseum, where the A's currently play, is flooded with raw sewage. That seems kind of relevant, no?

Yes, it is apparently an ugly sight at O.co right now as both the A's and the visiting Mariners were literally sent running from their respective locker rooms when raw sewage began backing up from the drainage system. Both media and players took to Twitter to describe the horror:

Unbelievable. Pipes backing up in both clubhouses. Mariners scrambling to get out. Training room and showers flooded and not stopping.

— Shannon Drayer (@shannondrayer) June 16, 2013

That sounds delightful. Apparently this isn't a new thing either. It happens all the time, but never this bad.

This isn't just water coming up from the drains ... that would be sewage. The place didn't smell that great to begin with. #Moneyball

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) June 16, 2013

Yep, that's right. Raw sewage or in layman's terms: poop. Human poop. At a big league stadium. Maybe David Justice having to pay for the vending machines isn't the worst thing about the Coliseum, after all.

The media is pretty horriffied, but at least the players are all taking it in good humor.

After I checked out the new swimming pool in our locker room I got to see the Raiders clubhouse! Pretty cool! #CommitmentToExcellence

— Sean Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) June 17, 2013

Although there are some who think foul play could be afoot.

I wonder if the raw sewage leak into the clubhouses is Jon Heyman's way at getting back us???

— Brett Anderson (@BrettAnderson49) June 16, 2013

Well played, Heyman. Well played.

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Rays fans have been impatiently awaiting the arrival of Wil Myers. Since he hadn't been called up yet, it was safe to assume that Tampa Bay was playing service-time games with last year's USA Today minor league Player of the Year. At issue was the "super-two" date, which determines when players become eligible for arbitration. Being on the wrong side of that date would change the season when Myers became eligible for a big paycheck. Luckily for fans, that date has almost arrived.

And today, Myers got the call.

Earlier this week, I mentioned that the Padres were "likely" sellers. On Friday, I mentioned that San Diego could probably use their three game sweep of Atlanta as a springboard to better things this year. Fast forward to today, and the Padres are 34-34, three games out of first in the NL West after a 6-4 win over the Diamondbacks on Saturday night. The Padres have reached the .500 mark for the first time since they started the 2011 season 4-4 before eventually finishing 71-91 and in last place in the division. With the Diamondbacks and Giants sleepwalking through the first half of this month, we've got a four team race right now, with the Dodgers always lurking.

PIC OF THE DAY

Albert Pujols' bat snaps in half during the third inning of Saturday's Angels-Yankees game (Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Day: Nationals 7, Indians 6. Washington jumped all over Cleveland starter Scott Kazmir, sending him to the showers after just eight outs and tallying five runs in the process. The Indians offense came roaring back against Washington ace Jordan Zimmermann, putting six runs on the board in innings three through five, eventually taking the lead on a two run double by Michael Brantley. Cleveland's bullpen held down the fort until the eighth, when Joe Smith allowed a game-tying solo homer to Chad Tracy. Then in the ninth, lights out Tribe closer Vinnie Pestano allowed a cheap, 340 foot homer to Washington rookie Anthony Rendon to put the visitors in front. Rafael Soriano shut the door in the ninth, and the Nationals avoided falling under .500.