MLB Heat Check, San Diego Padres 8-2 in Their Last 10

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around MLB: San Diego Padres keep winning, Oakland Athletics keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

The warm end of the table

Nobody is playing better than San Diego Padres right now. The record says 8-2 over their last 10; the runs column says even more, a +20 margin that works out to 4.9 scored and 2.9 allowed a night.

Right behind them sit St. Louis Cardinals, 7-3 over the same kind of stretch and +19 on runs margin, quieter, but pointed the same direction.

Keep Tampa Bay Rays in the conversation too, at 7-3 over their last 10.

Some context helps: across every club in the sample, scoring sits at 4.3 runs per game right now. San Diego Padres are beating the league's own pace by 0.6 a game.

The cold end

Then there is Oakland Athletics. A 1-9 stretch is ugly on its own; pair it with a -42 runs margin and it stops looking like bad luck. They are being outscored by about 4.2 runs a game, and no scheduling quirk explains that away.

Seattle Mariners are not far behind on the misery index at 3-7.

Do not ignore the middle class, either: Los Angeles Dodgers (5-5) and Athletics (4-4) sit close enough that a single hot or cold series flips their order.

The board

For the fuller picture, the five best recent records in the league:

The fine print

As always, watch where record and runs margin tell different stories about the same club. The margin tends to know first.

The schedule cooperates, too, San Diego Padres face New York Mets next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.