Team Heat Check: Los Angeles Dodgers Run Hot, Washington Nationals Run Cold (MLB)

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around MLB: Los Angeles Dodgers keep winning, Washington Nationals keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

The warm end of the table

Nobody is playing better than Los Angeles Dodgers right now. The record says 8-2 over their last 10; the runs column says even more, a +21 margin that works out to 6.4 scored and 4.3 allowed a night.

Pittsburgh Pirates are the closest thing to company at 8-2, with a +13 runs margin that says the record is no fluke.

And do not sleep on New York Yankees, quietly 7-3 across their last 10.

The whole league is averaging 4.7 runs a game in this stretch, which makes Los Angeles Dodgers outrunning that number by 1.7 per night the loudest stat on the page.

The cold end

At the bottom of the temperature map sit Washington Nationals: 2-8 in their last 10, -20 on runs margin. That is about 2.0 a game in the wrong direction, and no lineup shuffle fixes it overnight.

Kansas City Royals (3-7) share the cold row, for whatever comfort that provides.

Do not ignore the middle class, either: Tampa Bay Rays (5-5) and Arizona Diamondbacks (5-5) sit close enough that a single hot or cold series flips their order.

At a glance

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

Worth remembering

Records fib a little and runs margins fib less. When the two columns disagree about a team, trust the margin, it is the slower liar.

The schedule cooperates, too, Los Angeles Dodgers face Miami Marlins next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.