As fans, it's simply natural for us to declare winners and losers during the offseason. The Orioles were declared a big fat loser after doing nothing to improve their wild card team from 2012, while the Dodgers were declared a winner after adding Zack Greinke to their star-studded roster. Flash ahead to Saturday, when the Dodgers were playing a doubleheader in Baltimore. Of course, the Orioles swept the doubleheader by scores of 7-5 and 6-1, largely thanks to the same players who had such an impact on the team last season (including Nolan Reimold, who missed a lot of time in 2012). The Orioles are now 10-7 with a +13 run differential, and they've done that while playing the fifth-toughest schedule in baseball so far. So maybe, just maybe, Baltimore will be able to make another magical playoff run.

PIC OF THE DAY

The Red Sox and Royals stand for the national anthem before yesterday's game after a difficult week in Boston. (Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports)  

Game of the Day: Red Sox 4, Royals 3. It was an emotional day in Boston on Saturday, and the Red Sox added to that emotion with a stirring pregame tribute to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing (which included David Ortiz dropping an F-bomb). The Royals nearly spoiled the fun, leading 2-1 going into the bottom of the eighth, but Daniel Nava hit a three-run homer to put Boston in front 4-2. Lorenzo Cain homered in the ninth against Andrew Bailey to cut the lead to a run, but Bailey got Alex Gordon to ground out to end the game with two men on and give Boston an emotional victory.

The Washington Nationals have placed third baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the 15-day DL with a strained hamstring, and will call up top prospect Anthony Rendom to replace Zimmerman on the roster.

Zimmerman has been plagued by his normally reliable fielding this season, committing four errors in just 15 games. He hasn't played since Wednesday's game in Miami, and veteran utilityman Chad Tracy has started the first two games of Washington's series in New York as a result. For the season, Zimmerman is hitting .226/.311/.358 with just one homer. He hasn't logged 600 at bats in a season since 2009.

Rendon was Washington's top prospect coming into the season, and the sixth overall pick from Rice in the 2011 draft. He missed a lot of time due to injury in 2012, playing in just 43 games during the regular season and 22 in the Arizona Fall League. He's started hot this year at AA Harrisburg, hitting .292/.462/.500 in 14 games, homering twice and tallying 14 walks while only striking out nine times.

It's expected that Rendon will be sent back down to the minors once Zimmerman comes off the DL, but if he hits a ton, I don't think that Nationals GM Mike Rizzo and manager Davey Johnson will demote him without a second thought. One caveat with Rendon is that he *has* struggled against lefties this season, hitting just .071/.316/.071 in 19 plate appearances, but Washington is only scheduled to face one lefty starter over their next seven games: Jaime Garcia of the Cardinals.

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During Friday night's Brewers-Cubs game, Milwaukee shortstop Jean Segura had what can best be described as "an adventure" on the basepaths during the eighth inning of the Brewers' 5-4 win.

After reaching on an infield single, Segura stole second base during Ryan Braun's at bat against Kevin Gregg. After Gregg walked Braun, Shawn Camp came in to replace the Chicago reliever. Segura took off for third, and Camp picked him off. As third baseman Luis Valbuena chased Segura back to second, Braun broke for second on the play. 

Valbuena tagged both Segura and Braun as they were on second base. Per the rules, the traiiling runner (Braun) was out on the play, and Segura was entitled to second base. But Segura began jogging back to the dugout before realizing he was safe, and slid into first base safely. Essentially, he went backwards on the bases for no real reason.

Then, Segura attempted to steal second base for the second time in the inning, but was thrown out by Wellington Castillo.

So to summarize, Segura successfully stole second base once in the inning, was thrown out trying to steal second once, and Braun was picked off going from first to second on a play where the pickoff throw went to the third baseman. Got all that? Good.

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The Rockies beat the Diamondbacks 3-1 last night to improve their record to 12-4, and a perfect 7-0 at Coors Field. But if you want to talk about a team feasting on a weak schedule, look no further than Colorado. They're 2-1 against Milwaukee, 6-0 against San Diego, 3-0 against the Mets, and a combined 1-3 against Arizona and San Francisco. After the Rockies finish up this series with the Diamondbacks, they'll welcome the Braves to Coors Field before traveling to Arizona and Los Angeles, and then going back home to host the Rays and Yankees. Their next road trip after that will take them to St Louis and Chicago before they end up hosting San Francisco and Arizona again. By mid-May, the Rockies could be a team under .500. They've played four games against possible contenders this year, and have been outscored by 13 runs. Danger, Will Robinson.

PIC OF THE DAY

Mike Trout tumbles after making a diving catch on Friday night. (Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Giants 3, Padres 2. Friday wasn't really a night of close baseball games, so we'll go with the lone walkoff of the night. A Chase Headley solo homer tied the game at two in the sixth, but the Giants wouldn't take that sitting down in the ninth during Luke Gregerson's second inning of work. Gregor Blanco led the inning off with a single, and Andres Torres failed to lay the bunt down successfully, leading to Blanco getting thrown out at second and Torres reaching. He made that point moot by stealing second, and then scored on an Angel Pagan double to give the Giants the victory.

In wake of the manhunt in Watertown, Massachusetts and the surrounding area for suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnev, the Boston Red Sox have announced that tonight's game at Fenway Park with the Kansas City Royals has been postponed. The area is still under a civilian lockdown, and with gametime approaching and Tsarnev still at large, it simply makes sense to postpone the game.

In addition to the Red Sox postponement, tonight's Bruins game has also been postponed, along with the Bruins game on Monday and Celtics game on Tuesday following the bombing at the Marathon.

It's unknown when the game will be made up, but that's really not important at this point in time. Hopefully the Boston police department can get this situation resolved soon, and we can complete this horrific chapter of American history.

[ESPN Boston]

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The "Ask Me Anything" threads on Reddit are a pretty good example of modern social media providing access to celebrities that wouldn't have been possible just a few years ago. Sometimes they're informative, sometimes they're funny.

Sometimes, they're just plain weird, like Jose Canseco's AMA today.

Of course, if you're familiar with Canseco's work on Twitter, that probably doesn't come as a surprise to you. His AMA was much like his Twitter feed -- bizarre, not always safe for work yet oddly entertaining. There were even some reasonably coherent responses, like when he was asked if taking steroids during his career was worth it:

--jc7264

steroids cost me millions ,not worth it because cocaine ,liquor,marijuana and other drugs r more accepted than steroids even though they can help u

OK, let's go down the hierarchy of walkoff finishes (starting from the least satisfying), shall we?

-Walkoff wild pitch/balk/passed ball
-Walkoff error
-Walkoff walk/hit batsman
-Walkoff single
-Walkoff extra base hit
-Walkoff homer

What could possibly be better than a walkoff homer? Well, how about a walkoff grand slam? Because that's what happened in Baltimore last night. With the Rays and Orioles tied at six in the bottom of the tenth, Nick Markakis led the inning off with a single against Jamey Wright. Wright was pulled and replaced with Brandon Gomes, who allowed two more singles to Manny Machado and Adam Jones. That loaded the bases with none out for Matt Wieters, who performed the ultimate walkoff: the walkoff grand slam. That's right, Wieters smashed a ball over the right field fence at Camden Yards to give the O's a 10-6, ten inning win. Now, maybe the homer wasn't as satisfying as it could have been, since any fly ball would have ended the game...but it was still pretty damn awesome regardless.

PIC OF THE DAY

Ruben Tejada of the Mets makes a leaping throw after fielding a Troy Tulowitzki grounder. (Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports)

Game of the Night: Cardinals 4, Phillies 3. The anemic Phillies offense nearly pulled out a win, but at the end of the night, came up empty-handed. St Louis took a 2-0 lead in the fourth after a controversial double by Yadier Molina plated a pair of runs. The Phillies tied the game in the sixth after an RBI double from Freddy Galvis, and a run-scoring single from Chase Utley. St Louis bounced back in front in the seventh after a Pete Kozma sac fly brought in David Freese, but the Phillies tied it up once again with an Erik Kratz RBI single. In the eighth, Carlos Beltran put the Redbirds out in front again with a solo homer, and Philadelphia was in prime position to tie or win in the ninth with men on the corners and none out. But Kevin Frandsen grounded out (moving Kratz from first to second), Jimmy Rollins struck out, and Galvis grounded out to end the game, letting Ben Revere die on third base when just one ball hit out of the infield would have tied the game up.

Earlier today, rumors began to trickle out that Derek Jeter had to make an "unscheduled" trip to his orthopedist. Impromptu doctor visits are never a good thing. Neither are hastily scheduled press conferences like the one Brian Cashman just held to divulge the details behind The Captain's trip to the doc. As you have surmised by now, it isn't good news:

Derek Jeter has a small crack in the area of the previous injury, per a CT scan. Cashman says he won't be back until after All-Star Break.

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughSL) April 18, 2013

Nope, not good at all. Although it could have been worse. The silver lining is that he will avoid additional surgery... for now. Jeter's recovery from his ankle injury had already suffered a number of setbacks over the last few months, so assuming that Jeter will make good on the new prognosis of being ready to go by late-April would seem to be a fool's errand at this point. For all intents and purposes, Jeter is now on the same nebulous recovery timeline as fellow teammate Alex Rodriguez where they are now both targeting late-July but nobody seems be very certain about either coming back at all.

While the Yanks did get a more positive update on the recovery of Mark Teixeira earlier this week, it seems that they are going to have to continue to find a way to survive their onslaught of injuries. At 8-5, they've managed to get by so far, but with this deflating news, one can't help but wonder if they can continue to overachieve in his absence.

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The Astros are a bad baseball team, a team that many believed could be the first team since the 1962 Mets to lose 120 games.

The Marlins are also a bad baseball team, a team that didn't get quite the same doomsday projections that the Astros did, but given their 2-11 start, it seems they were wildly short-changed in that regard.

But none of this should come as a shock to anyone. Bad teams being bad is what we expect and quibbling over who is worse would be mean-spirited and morbid. We here at The Outside Corner would never stoop to that level, at least not until we run into a slow news day, instead we shall try and bring a little hope to these hopeless franchises by determining which team actually has a real shot at a bright, or at least moderately well-lit, future.

To solve this clearly important and controversial quandry, we take to the debate floor with the esteemed Garrett Wilson taking up for the Astros and Joe Lucia defending the Marlins.

Ready... set... argue in a structured format!