Most of the sports world is focusing on the first round of the NFL draft tonight. No one can doubt that football is king in America. If anyone doubts that, they should take a look at the television ratings tomorrow morning. The NFL will undoubtedly trounce real live baseball games and will more than likely eclipse the NBA playoffs as well. All that being said, there is still a lot to focus on when it comes to the diamond. So, welcome to another edition of the Thursday night final.

The Week in Review

The Chicago White Sox continued their surprising rise to the top of the AL Central standings. The rotation has simply been spectacular as Chris Sale, Mat Latos, and Jose Quintana have all posted ERAs under 2.00 and have combined for a 12-1 record. The rest of the team is 4-6 after Thursday night’s action. Carlos Rodon has been a decent fourth starter (1-2 with a 4.05 ERA) leaving them with only one gaping hole in their rotation.

Every yin must have a raging yang and in this case it is the Houston Astros. They had an off day and Thursday and they desperately needed it. They will go into a weekend series with the Oakland Athletics at a dismal 7-15. This despite the fact that they have three of the four American League player of the week recipients. Jose Altuve and Colby Rasmus are off to blistering starts, but the team’s rotation appears to be the very antithesis of the White Sox’ top four starters.

In the senior circuit, the Cubs continued their dominance as they moved to a 16-5 record with their victory over the Brewers on Thursday afternoon. Kris Bryant went down with an apparent injury, but we will cover that in more detail later. There are few surprises in the National League, but the early play of the Phillies is one of them. They moved to 12-10 on the season despite having a very young roster bereft of household names.

If you read one thing…

Most traditional fans peg Memorial Day as the day when we should start paying attention to the standings and to individual player numbers. That system is probably a bit antiquated. Now that we are more than three weeks into the season, it is high time that we start paying attention to trends. You probably shouldn’t drop any of your star players (and in Yahoo you can’t anyway) but you can probably should consider benching some that are underperforming.

We really weren’t surprised…

Stephen A. Smith is generally a blowhard that likes to hear the sound of his own voice. Yesterday, he hinted that Jake Arrieta was doing something he shouldn’t to achieve the success that he has achieved in the last couple of seasons. By now, we shouldn’t be surprised that Arrieta turned in another brilliant performance and moved his record to 5-0 with a 1.00 ERA. His outing was a bit of a struggle, but he still limited the Brewers to one run in five innings. Most big league pitchers would love to struggle like that.

We were surprised when…

Jeremy Hellickson turned in another brilliant performance for the Phillies. He has a 3.55 ERA through the month of April. When he signed with the Phillies, most people thought he would be good for around 150 innings of mediocre baseball, but he has settled in as the veteran of the staff. He struck out seven hitters in seven scoreless innings on Thursday making him a decent waiver addition candidate at this point. Of course, most people think he’ll be falling out of his tree any minute.

Save Opportunities

• Jeanmar Gomez (Converted #7)
• Francisco Rodriguez (Converted #5)

Injury News/Roster Moves

• Second basemen Scooter Gennett landed on the disabled list with right oblique tightness and have selected the contract for Hernan Perez.
• Closer Huston Street also has a strained oblique muscle and is likely to land on the disabled list.
• The Detroit Tigers are promoting Michael Fulmer to make his debut against the Twins on Friday. It is unclear as to whether this will be a permanent move.
• The Athletics have promoted Sean Manaea to make his debut on Friday against the Houston Astros.
• Kris Bryant left Thursday’s game with a slight ankle sprain. At this point, it is unclear as to whether he will miss any playing time.