Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

Back on Opening Day in Minnesota, a bald eagle went off script in the pregame ceremonies and landed on Seattle Mariners pitcher James Paxton. According to social media legend, this eagle granted Paxton magical powers, and those powers manifested themselves this past week when Paxton went to his native Canada and no-hit the Toronto Blue Jays.

While Paxton's no-no was already the third of the season in MLB, it was arguably the most impressive one so far. He completed the feat in just 99 pitches so he also picked up a Maddux along the way, and he seemed to only get stronger as the game went on. Speaking of 99, that's the number that Paxton had flashing on the radar gun all the way into the ninth inning.

Simply put, there was no denying James Paxton of his historical moment on Tuesday night, and it was definitely special to see the second-ever no-hitter recorded by a Canadian pitcher occur on Canadian soil to boot. Sometimes the baseball gods conspire to give us something really cool. James Paxton's no-no on Tuesday was definitely one of those moments.

Dodgers throw a combined no-hitter

Meanwhile in Mexico over the weekend, the Dodgers may still be struggling, but they pulled a rabbit out of the hat by completing a combined no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. Walker Buehler threw six innings of no-hit ball this past Friday night, and then Tony Cingrani, Yimi Garcia and Adam Liberatore took it on home to complete the combined no-no for the Dodgers.

While it took four pitchers, five walks and a Padres team that is easily the weakest of the three offenses that have been victimized for no-hitters so far this season, that shouldn't take away from the fact that what we saw on Friday night is incredibly rare. That's only the 12th time in MLB history that we've seen a combined no-hitter occur. Baseball has been around since, like, forever, so the fact that there have only been 12 of these is actually kind of amazing.

What makes this even more amazing is the fact that all three no-hitters have occurred in different countries. Sean Manaea's no-hitter took place in the good ol' USA, James Paxton achieved his feat in his native country of Canada, and both the Dodgers and Padres just happened to be playing a series in Mexico when the Dodgers completed their feat. Talk about spreading the game!

George Springer goes wild

Getting six hits in one game is an incredible feat. Just ask Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, who used to be the only player in Houston Astros history to achieve it when he got six hits during a game in 1965. Following this past week, he now has company in that department after George Springer went 6-for-6 in a blowout win against the A's.

While Springer and Morgan share the space in Houston's Six-Hit Club, you could make the argument that Springer's achievement was better. Back in 1965, it took Morgan 12 innings to get those six hits. Springer did it in the regulation nine innings. Of course, there's no need to argue.

Instead, we should all appreciate the fact that we got to witness something you don't see every day, and I'm sure that Astros fans appreciate having Springer sporting the Astros orange for the foreseeable future as well.

Three Down

The Mets batted out of order

Oh dear. Although the Mets aren't exactly terrible right now, it's starting to become evident that their 11-1 start was a bit of a mirage. As of the time of writing, they are 18-17 and managed to drop a series against the last-place Cincinnati Reds, who "improved" to 10-27 after pulling off that series victory.

Not only did the Mets make the Reds look competent, but they also pulled off one of the more embarrassing feats that you'll see all season. After Asdrubal Cabrera reached second base with two out in the top of the first inning, Reds interim manager Jim Riggleman picked this time to point out that the lineup Mickey Callaway's Mets trotted out and posted everywhere — from their social media accounts right down to their dugout walls — was not the same as what was filled out on the official lineup card.

The umpires reviewed it, and sure enough, the Mets had their players bat out of order. Cabrera was called out, and the Mets lost a runner in scoring position in a game that they lost 2-1 via walk-off home run. Not only was it a hilariously bush league mistake, but it was also a costly one. Oh, Mets.

Baltimore Uh-O's

There are a lot of teams around baseball that went into this season with the intention of "biding their time" for their respective rebuilding processes. It stinks for their fans who want to see them try to put out a good team in order to win, but they can also look at teams like the Astros and Cubs and realize that this process does work if your front office knows what it's doing. However, it could be worse — you could be trying to win and still end up falling flat on your face.

That's what's happened to the Baltimore Orioles. We haven't reached the traditional checkpoint of Memorial Day yet, but it's probably safe to say that the Orioles are not going to contend for the postseason this year, which is sad because they went into this season actually trying to compete. Instead, they've gotten off to a 9-27 start and are far off of the pace in the AL East.

Things hit their nadir on Tuesday night, which is when Dylan Bundy got absolutely destroyed by the Kansas City Royals, of all teams. He didn't record a single out while the Royals scored seven runs on him and 10 runs on the O's in the first inning alone. Sorry O's fans, but it sure looks like you all are going to be in for a long, long season.

The entire AL Central is underwater

Speaking of the Royals, it shouldn't be a surprise that they are currently 12-24. They're one of those aforementioned teams that is rebuilding for the future right now, so it shouldn't be a surprise that K.C. is that deep under .500. What is a surprise is that at one point last week, the entire AL Central was under .500.

Yes, that includes the Cleveland Indians. They're the prohibitive favorites and easy pick to win that division again, but they haven't gotten off to a flying start and joined the rest of the division in the "under .500" club for a brief moment to make sure the entire division was underwater. You have to figure that Cleveland will eventually heat up and leave .500 in the dust, but we could very well be looking at the worst division in all of baseball.

Aside from Cleveland, the only team that looks like is could be decent is Minnesota. Other than that, the Royals, White Sox and Tigers all figure to be pretty bad, and they've played that way so far. Maybe winter wanted to stay around far longer than expected in the Midwest because even Mother Nature knew what fans of the AL Central were going to be in for during the spring and summer.