From Last Night:

• Mike Trout hits for the cycle
• Leake strong as the Reds beat the Mets 4-0
• McClouth walks off against the Yanks
• Garza sharp in his season debut, but Snider slams the Cubs pen to give the Bucs the W
• Greinke gets roughed up over 4 innings in Milwaukee

What I’m Watching Today:

• Harvey versus Latos at Citi (1p Eastern)
• Gio and Bumgarner throw from the left side in SF (330p Eastern)
• Cliff Lee faces the Marlins (7p Eastern)
• Buchholz gets the White Sox (8p Eastern)

The Big Question:

• Is a 4th AL 3B trying to get involved in this race?

Last week I talked about how Miguel Cabrera, Evan Longoria, and Manny Machado led the AL in WAR, but a new AL 3B has moved into the #4 spot: Josh Donaldson. As I write this, he’s hitting .315/.391/.530 with a 152 wRC+ an 2.1 WAR, which is 9th in MLB. He’s flashed solid potential before, but nothing quite like this. In 300+ previous big league at bats he was a below average walker and above average strikeout guy who didn’t hit for average of power. In the minors he had some reasonable success, but it wasn’t anything spectacular. Now in 2013, he’s crushing. His BABIP (.353) is elevated, but he’s shown a higher BABIP in various minor league stints so it’s not like it is guaranteed to regress dramatically. I left him out of my top 9 3B to start the year and I think I’m sticking with that, but for now, the best 3 players in the AL play 3B and one of them is Josh Donaldson.