Every week, the Pitcher List team will publish an update to our power rankings, highlighting three teams among the different tiers of contention. As always, the full rankings can be found at the bottom of this article, but where’s the fun in that?
As we wait another week to confirm the Red Sox placement in the contender tier of our Power Rankings, there is a different AL East club that should be highlighted for its consistency. Meanwhile, despite nearly identical records, the Astros and Marlins find themselves in separate tiers for reasons we’ll discuss below.
Contender
No.4 Tampa Bay Rays (62-43, +42 run differential)
Try as they might, the Rays have yet to be able to build a larger lead in the AL East while the Yankees deal with their injury problems, taking out multiple former MVPs in their lineup. As disappointing as that may seem, it is the end of July, and Tampa is basically a shoo-in for the postseason, something no one really saw coming back at the start of the season. The Rays have recovered about as well as they could have hoped from that sweep they suffered at the hands of the Red Sox by winning six of their last seven.
In just two series against the Blue Jays and Guardians, this Rays team showed its ability to win in many ways, not overly reliant on a single player or unit. Facing the Blue Jays, it was all about the offense, averaging six runs a game with the veteran Yandy Diaz, who recently notched his 1,000th career hit in the big leagues, securing a run and/or RBI in each game. There was production from unexpected places as well, with Victor Mesa Jr. and Nick Fortes combining to hit three home runs in the series against the Blue Jays.
Facing a superior quality of pitching against the Cleveland Guardians, the Rays relied more on their pitching staff to get the job done and unceremoniously sweep the series over the weekend. In fact, when they take the field this Tuesday at home against the Texas Rangers—yet another team fighting for first place in a weak division—the Rays will be defending a scoreless streak of 18 innings, having needed just four runs to beat Cleveland in the last two games. It comes as no surprise that Nick Martínez and Drew Rasmussen were the starters in those two wins, each tossing seven scoreless innings, forming one of the outstanding one-two punches in the American League this season.
The Middle
No. 19 Houston Astros (53-55, -45 run differential)
Led by a powerful hitter, the Houston Astros are right back in the thick of things fighting for an AL West title that no one seems to want to win—oh, and Yordan Alvarez also plays for them. You thought I was talking about Alvarez with that opening mention, but even though he was also great this past week, he wasn’t as great as Jeremy Pena—the Astros starting shortstop won AL Player of the Week honors, going 13 for 26 with five home runs and eight RBI. Prior to this run, Peña had only homered six times this season, and as awesome as Alvarez has been in 2026, it helps to have other pieces stepping up. Although unspectacular, the corner infield spots have provided a significant boost with Christian Walker’s resurgence and Isaac Paredes‘ stable production.
Over 162, and with so many teams straddling the line between contender and non-contender, timing can matter just as much as anything else. Take Houston, for instance, who managed to play and take advantage of the Marlins in the middle of a losing skid that went on to reach 12 games, a franchise record. It isn’t to take anything away from the Astros’ current run, though, having more recently beaten the White Sox in two out of three, enjoying Hunter Brown’s strongest outing of the year.
Having Brown pitching at a high level is of integral value to an Astros rotation that’s lacked any reliable options behind Peter Lambert this season. Tatsuya Imai just followed a great performance against the Marlins with a start against the Angels this Monday in which he couldn’t even get out of the first inning, unable to find consistency in his first year stateside. The offense, as it has several times this season, managed to bail out Imai and win the game 6-4, but there is only so much it can do long term.
Wait ‘Til 2027
No. 21 Miami Marlins (53-54, +3 run differential)
How can a team with a record half a game better be in a worse tier? The answer is context and momentum, as the Marlins face challenges far bigger than the Astros. No, we aren’t even talking about this recent losing streak that was only erased on Monday in an 8-7 win that they nearly blew by allowing three runs in the ninth inning. The problem for the Marlins is a highly competitive National League playoff landscape, ready to punish any team in a way the American League doesn’t even come close to. Even in their best periods this season, a Wild Card spot was the best it could get, and now that’s threatened by a number of teams ready to pounce on their slip-up. Someone with a harsher tone might point out they already have the fifth-worst record in a National League with 10 teams at or above .500.
Adding salt to the wound, in this 12-game losing streak that came against the Guardians, Brewers, Astros, and Padres, the Marlins actually were competitive for nearly its entirety, only once losing a game by more than three runs. Offensively, the lack of production from a middle infield partnership that has carried this attack for much of the year was pivotal—neither Otto Lopez nor Xavier Edwards is at their best; the same can be said of Liam Hicks, who has a sub-.700 OPS in July.
Sandy Alcantara has been at the top of the list of individuals who suffered from this lack of offensive firepower the Marlins have shown recently—Miami has dropped each of Sandy’s last three starts, with the right-hander combining to cover 20 innings and allow eight runs in this period. Heading into free agency at the end of the year and with a Wild Card push looking less likely by the day, Alcantara may very well be moved, which would further negatively impact the Marlins’ chances of turning this around. At the same time, they could get something for him now and still try to bring him back in the offseason.
