Welcome back to CBS sports HQ. The latest edition of Matt Snyder's MLB Power Rankings is out and despite a limited sample size in terms of games following the all star break, we have some movement thanks to some key weekend series, most notably the Astros moving into the top five after taking over the lead in the Al West on Saturday, moving down. The New York Mets playoff position before the all star break. They come out of it having lost two of three to the Marlins. Eek! All right, let's welcome in rankings author Matt Snyder alongside former general manager Jim Bowden. Another team that had a good weekend, gentlemen. The LA Dodgers. They stumbled into the break and come out of it by sweeping the Red Sox. And they get more good news this week Matt with a couple of big names returning. Yeah Tyler Glass now should start Wednesday. And then Clayton Kershaw is going to be back and start Thursday. And they really needed some help. The rotation has been absolutely decimated by injuries. This season. They had a basically an all star team on the injured list. And they still got Yamamoto. Walker Buehler on the injured list. Bobby Miller got sent down to Triple-A to work things out. It's going to be interesting to see how things go the rest of the way with this rotation. But if you if they got to the playoffs and let's say they they get the best healthy versions of glass now Kershaw Buehler. Yamamoto. That is an absolute lock down rotation. And then if they have other guys get healthy they can kick some of those guys down to the bullpen. Help with the bullpen depth. It's like I said, it's going to be interesting because James Paxton has been doing some heavy lifting for them and who would have thought that would be the case, they feel like they've been kind of disappointing up to this point, but they're playing it in 96 win pace, so must be nice to be disappointing. And playing at a 96 one pace. So I've got a lot more concerns than Matt does about the starting pitching for the Dodgers. And even though they had the sweep over the weekend, not one of their starters went more than five innings. Right, Gavin Stone Wrobleski or Paxton? Tyler Glass is coming back and I'm excited about his return. He was an all star for the first time this year. He's pitched like an ace, but keep in mind his career high in innings pitched is at 120. And you know what? He's at 109 right now. So what he's going to look like in September. And October I think is a question mark. Now. Also, Yasunobu Yamamoto, I talked to a member of the Dodgers front office over the weekend. They're concerned about him, and there is no definite timetable for him. They're hoping mid-August, but we don't know for sure what that shoulder is going to look like and how it's going to rebound the rest of the way. And sure, Clayton Kershaw is coming to pitch on Thursday, but everyone that's watching him is saying he's just 88 to 91, right? We don't have the mid 90s. Kershaw again. Now don't get me wrong with his curveball his Uncle Charlie and the slider. He can still fool hitters, but he's not going to be anything more than probably a 4 or 5 inning starter for them. Yet another five inning starter. And when Walker Buehler comes back, he didn't look good. And I don't think he's ever going to completely come back and be the ace kind of pitcher. He was before the Tommy John surgery. And by the way, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May are out for the year now. I have been told that President Andrew Friedman and general Manager Brandon Gomez have been on the phone nonstop. They're trying to get Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox. They're trying to get Tariq Skubal from the Detroit Tigers. They do have a deep farm system, but they feel the pressure right now in the front office that this starting pitching might not hold up come October. It's certainly something we'll all be watching. And we're sitting eight days away from the trade deadline, so there's still just a little bit of time left. All right. We mentioned the Astros taking over the lead in the Al West Seattle drew back even last night. But Matt how impressive have the Astros been after that horrible start. And what's their ceiling for you as of right now? Very impressive. Look I know that the record probably looks out of whack for being a top five team, but they've been 40 and 23 since that 12 and 24 start. That's the best record in baseball in that time period. It's 100 and. If you extrapolated that out to a full season. So yeah they need rotation. They we'll see how much Justin Verlander can give once he returns whenever he returns. But they probably need at least one more arm in the rotation because they've already lost two guys for the season. And who knows what is going on with Lance McCullers junior if he's ever going to be able to come back, I still think that this is the best team in the Al West. Their ceiling, ceiling is what the Astros ceiling has been for the past seven, eight years. It's to win the World Series. Obviously, everything has to break, right? They'll need Kyle Tucker to get back, and he will be back. Likely very shortly, but, yeah, overall, they look really, really good right now. They've been one of the best teams in baseball since early May, and they look great when they were ten games under 500 in June, I told everyone they'd be in first place by the trade deadline. They made it to first place a week before the trade deadline, I talked to Dana Brown, the general manager of the Houston Astros, yesterday. I asked him what he was going to do at the trade deadline. He said very clearly he is going after a starting pitcher pitching, pitching, pitching. I said, what about first base? He said, we'll probably make do with what we have. We right now are focused on a pitcher. I said, what kind of pitcher? What level are you talking about? A number three starter, number four starter. He said, let me make it very clear I'm going after the big boys. We are going to shoot big in this organization. We're going to go for the top starting pitchers that are available. If we can't get them, then we'll go and get the next level. But one thing's for sure we're going to acquire pitching between now and the deadline. Look, we've been covering the Houston Astros for seven straight postseasons. This is going to be number eight. It's going to be fun to watch what they're able to do at the deadline. Open up a three game series against the Athletics tonight on top of losing their division lead to Houston, the Mariners also lost center fielder Julio Rodriguez to an ankle sprain on Sunday. He's listed as day to day set to undergo further imaging on Monday. Matt, you compared the Mariners to the 95 angels in your piece on CBS sports dot com. Can you explain that and give Mariners fans perhaps just a glimmer of hope? Absolutely. The 1995 angels had a ten and a half game lead, and in 33 days they blew it. And it was to the Mariners, actually, a really, really loaded Mariners team, actually. But, this one only took 24 days for this Mariners team to blow a double digit lead. So they broke the record. They blew it away. In the divisional era, that was the quickest anybody's ever erased a double digit lead, the Mariners just can't hit, 28th in runs, 30th in average, 27th in on base percentage, 28th in slugging percentage, and one of the last vestiges of hope for this team as constructed, was what if Julio Rodriguez figures it out and gets hot? Well, now he gets hurt and goes down, so I guess I should not have answered absolutely that I could give the Mariners a glimmer of hope, I'll try. They're tied right now in a virtual tie with the Astros, and there's a lot of time left that angels team. When they blew that lead. It was late September. By the time the Mariners ran them down. So they didn't really have any time to fix things. This Mariners team has time to fix things. I don't think they will. But if you want a glimmer of hope, Mariners fans, there's plenty of time. There is only one lineup in Major League Baseball that has struck out a thousand times or more. That's the Seattle Mariners 1038 times they punched out Oakland hasn't done it. The White Sox haven't done it. That's how bad this lineup is. When you strike out that much, it's really hard to win. It's really hard to score runs. How bad are things? They put Ty France on waivers outright waivers. Anybody can claim them. That's the guy that they said would win a batting title someday. That's the guy they said was going to create offense in the middle of the lineup. They just put him on waivers, and again, I don't think anyone will claim him. They'll probably retain him. But that's an unbelievable. Now, I asked them about J-rod this morning, they think it's a light ankle sprain. There's no nothing broken. They are going to do an MRI today. But again, they're hopeful that he plays this week. We'll monitor the situation here and keep watching. Now I talked to Jerry Dipoto the president of the Seattle Mariners. And I asked him straight out Will your ownership give you the money that it takes to go get a bat or two at the deadline? Will they provide the money? They did not provide for you in the off season? He said, yes, they will. I said, okay, next question to you. Are you willing to trade the top prospects in your system if that's what it takes to get the offense to get to the postseason? He said that he would. I trust Jerry Dipoto if he says he will, he will. Keep in mind if they can find a way to get to October, they have the starting pitching to run the table and be a surprise team and win the whole thing. But they're going to have to fix this lineup. Jerry Dipoto is on the clock. Tick tock, tick tock. Oh yeah. Absolutely right. We talk about the ties between the Mariners and the angels. They kick off a three game series tonight. Kansas City Royals have jumped into the top ten on Matt Snyder's power rankings and put themselves into a wild card spot behind Seth Lugo's first career complete game. They're one of the best teams in the American League over their past ten games. They're five games back of Cleveland in the Al central. After sweeping the white Sox. How dangerous can the Royals be? Matt Oh, very. I mean, it's a young, exciting team. You know they've got MVP candidate Bobby Witt Jr I mean he wouldn't win it right now. But he's in the mix for like a top five spot. But let's look at the rotation right now Michael Walker is going very very well right now. That gives them a big four there with Brady singer Cole Ragans. And as you just mentioned Seth Lugo the all star this year. That's a backbone. That's a big foundation of a team that could make some noise if they make the postseason. That's a really, really nice top four in the rotation. And with Walker being there for he's been through the postseason battles. He's started World Series games for the 2013 Cardinals. So this is a team that is really dangerous right now and is definitely one to watch in the American League. Yeah. And their offense really goes around Bobby Witt Junior Salvador Perez and Vinnie Contino. But what the rest of the lineup does is they don't strike out and they're second in baseball in the least amount of strikeouts in the lineup. So they move the chains, they get you to third and they get a sac fly. They bunch you over, they do the little things to score just enough runs to take advantage of the great pitching. I talked to Matt Quatraro, the manager of the Royals, yesterday. I asked him straight out, what do you what are you guys going to do with the deadline? Of course, they've already traded for reliever Hunter Harvey. They overpaid, but they got Hunter Harvey from Washington. He said we're going to keep adding pitching. That's a smart play with the team that they have right now. They're going to be fun to watch. Although I don't see them making the playoffs. I think it's really fun that we're sitting here near the trade deadline and as of today, they would be in the wild card race again, eight days away from the trade deadline. If you can't tell, Jim's pretty excited about it. Before we let you guys go, I got to go back to the angels. They're down at 27. In the power rankings below the Athletics. Matt you said, hey look they may be irrelevant, but worth keeping an eye on in the next couple of weeks. Tell us why. Mike trout Mike Trout is starting a rehab assignment. He will be back probably Thursday and they have a lot of games remaining against the Rangers, the Mariners, the Astros. So they could be a factor in the Al West just in terms of being an opponent to contenders. And it's a much better team. Obviously when Mike trout is in the lineup. And really, Mike trout is still fun to watch. So when he's on the field, he's still one of the best players in baseball. So it's a big deal that they're getting trout back. Yeah. And don't forget he was actually leading the league with ten homers when he got injured in April. That's that's the kind of year that he started out. And keep in mind because we have to always honor Mike trout when we talk about him. Three MVP awards, a rookie of the year award, nine Silver Slugger Awards, 11 all star games. When Mike trout is back playing, it is good for Angel fans. It's good for baseball fans. And most importantly, it's good for my fantasy teams. Well, I certainly hope it's good for my fantasy team. That's all I can say. Him will be writer Matt Snyder, former GM Jim Bowden talking Matt's latest power rankings over on CBS sports. As you take a look at the notable games tonight. Mets and Marlins Mets trying to salvage a part othat series. Reds