Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

Matt Carpenter and the Cardinals are right back in it

Don't look now, but the Cardinals are back in the thick of things. Ever since firing Mike Matheny, the Cardinals have actually started playing some good baseball under interim manager Mike Shildt and have clawed their way into firm contention for the wild card game. They've caught up with the Brewers, and they actually have the Cubs in sight. It's a truly stunning turn of events for a team and a clubhouse that were seemingly mired in discord and controversy just a few weeks ago.

The biggest reason for the turnaround is clearly the play of Matt Carpenter, who has taken his game into a stratospheric level as of late. He got off to an amazingly slow start — he was hitting .140/.286/.272 with a paltry wRC+ of 58 on May 15. As of this writing, those numbers are .272/.386/.500 and 34 home runs with an extremely healthy wRC+ of 155. Folks, those are MVP numbers and if the Cardinals can complete their turnaround and make it into October, Carpenter is going to get plenty of MVP votes.

Again, it's a pleasant sight to see the Cardinals doing well after taking action and firing Matheny. Sometimes you see teams just continue to swirl toward the bottom in situations like these, but instead St. Louis decided to get up off the mat and fight back. It still remains to be seen whether or not they'll make it into the playoffs, but the fact that they're even in the conversation now is actually amazing.

Ignore Jose Ramirez and Cleveland at your own peril

Imagine if there were a player who was hitting home runs at the same rate as J.D. Martinez while stealing bases at the same rate as Dee Gordon. That seems like a truly terrifying baseball player, right? Well, that baseball player actually exists right now and he's plying his trade for the Cleveland Indians. I'm talking about Jose Ramirez, who is currently having an absolute monster of a season.

According to FanGraphs' measurement of WAR, Ramirez is leading all of baseball in WAR at 8.1, and it's pretty simple to see why he's been so valuable this year. Even though all of his peripheral stats suggest that he's been an utter terror for opposing teams to deal with this season, it's the fact that he spent a good chunk of this past week leading the AL in both home runs and stolen bases that should be enough to convince even the staunchest traditionalist that he's been on a tear.

It's been easy to ignore Cleveland this season since it's basically had the AL Central on lock since June. But I'd imagine that Ramirez is going to be on a lot of shortlists for MVP once we get to the end of the season. Most importantly, he's one of the many reasons why Cleveland could be dangerous in October. We're all paying attention to the usual suspects in the East and West, but it would be unwise to look past the Tribe and Jose Ramirez in particular.

Jose Ureña goes into business for himself in a good way

Well then, Jose Ureña sure had an interesting week, didn't he? Last week, he was the biggest villain in all of baseball after he decided for himself that he was not going to be the latest Marlins pitcher on Ronald Acuña Jr.'s highlight reel. The pitcher received plenty of deserved criticism from all corners of the baseball world — except from MLB itself, which determined that his actions were worth only a six-game suspension, which was basically just giving him an extra day of rest.

While he was appealing his suspension, he made up to his team for throwing only one pitch against the Braves by hurling a complete game on Sunday against the Nationals. He gave up only two hits throughout the entire nine innings and was charged with only one run throughout the day.

As far as the Marlins are concerned, this was about as ideal of a response from Ureña as they could have possibly dreamed of. He responded to adversity by returning to the mound and throwing the game of his life. It's too bad that it came after one of the dirtiest moments of the season, so the collective response from the baseball world was more of a Larry David-esque shrug rather than universal praise. Still, it was an excellent performance and it has to be acknowledged.

Three Down

It's all over for the Nationals

You know things are going badly for you when you're in this section two weeks in a row. Lo and behold, the Washington Nationals had another week to regret, which resulted in the team basically waving the white flag with a couple of trades and an announcement from team owner Mark D. Lerner that actually acknowledged that the team was punting on the 2018 season to focus on next season.

It was an interesting decision to make when you consider that they may have been able to get more for Daniel Murphy and Matt Adams (who were traded to the Cubs and Cardinals, respectively) had they decided to give up the ghost on the season. Granted, they probably wouldn't have gotten too much more, but it just feels like they were prolonging the inevitable by choosing to hang on when it was evident that this probably is not going to be their year.

With that being said, it's an inglorious end to the Nats' time as a playoff contender. Instead of wondering whether or not this finally would be the year when they'd win a playoff series, the big question now is when will we see Washington in the playoffs again? It clearly won't be this season, and there's a decent chance that the next appearance will happen without Bryce Harper. The future is very volatile for the Nationals in more ways than one.

The train went off the track for the Angels

It's been a rough week for the Angels. I remember being so excited about watching this team earlier in the season, and now here we are in August when the Angels have turned into an afterthought in the incredibly exciting AL West and in baseball in general due to injuries. Plus, they had a couple of moments that could only happen to a team that's snakebitten for a season.

For starters, they hit into a triple play against the Rangers. What made this one special (or unfortunate if you're a fan of the Halos) is that the batter wasn't retired. They went from having the bases loaded with nobody out to having to prepare for the next inning, and they eventually lost the game. Yikes!

Then on this past Tuesday, the Angels lost to the Diamondbacks in excruciating fashion. They went into the bottom of the ninth tied at four and then lost the game after the following sequence: hit-by-pitch, infield single, sacrifice bunt, error, loss. The Diamondbacks were a passenger on the Angels' train of futility and rode that train to victory. The only bright side is that a lot of teams have had lower valleys than this, so I guess the Angels have that going for them?

Trevor Bauer gets in the center of another wacky controversy

Trevor Bauer could best be described as eccentric. With that in mind, it's understandable that a casual fan could hear basically any tall tale about Bauer and whatever misadventures he may have gotten into or any old wild quote that could be attributed to the pitcher and all of it would be believable.

Michael Baumann is an MLB writer for The Ringer, and he recently sent out a tweet that summed up Bauer's affinity for the absurd. It also was timely since Bauer is currently dealing with a pretty nasty leg injury. The tweet was clearly a bit of satire, but a lot of people didn't pick up on it — namely, the good folks at MLB Network who read the tweet on air with a straight face, as if it was fact.

This led to a bizarre saga where MLB Network drew the ire of Baumann, and Bauer himself had to refute the story. He also went after ESPN for a bit before apologizing to the network. If you want the full story on this wacky saga, Sheryl Ring of FanGraphs did a great job of detailing the entire bizarre moment. Also, welcome to 2018 where a throwaway tweet has more power than you could possibly imagine.