ESPN Buster Olney Blog

It was a weekend of separation, a weekend of confirmation and an important weekend for:

The Blue Jays. Toronto second baseman Aaron Hill marveled early last week about the poise and performance of the Blue Jays' young pitchers, and on Friday Brett Cecil shut down the White Sox, and Robert Ray did the same on Saturday. On Sunday, Roy Halladay closed out Chicago, nudging the Jays' lead in the AL East to three games. At plus-59, Toronto has the best run differential in the AL; a quarter of the way through the season, the Jays are also the best in the majors.

"They might have not been sure before if they were good enough to hang with the big boys," said one talent evaluator on Sunday night. "But they believe it now, which makes them very dangerous."

Halladay is the first pitcher to win eight games, Ken Fidlin writes. Richard Griffin wonders where Toronto would be without Halladay.

The Rangers. The Angels got back Ervin Santana on Thursday, John Lackey returned to the rotation on Saturday, and Vladimir Guerrero started taking batting practice. Almost all systems are go for the team that wins the AL West year after year after year -- and the Rangers hammered them in a three-game sweep, holding them to three runs in the final two games of the series. Texas has won seven straight games and has pushed its lead in the division to 4½ games, and fans around The Ballpark are noticing -- the Rangers sold about 32,000 tickets to this series just this weekend, and drew 105,000 for the three days.

Everything looks good with the Rangers, writes Tim Cowlishaw. Texas' starting pitching is quieting critics, writes Gil LeBreton.

The Dodgers. The deeds and words of Manny Ramirez are still creating more news than the sterling play of the guy who is filling in for him. But over the past seven days, Juan Pierre is batting .407, with a .467 on-base percentage and seven runs scored. Then there's the performance of the whole team. Clayton Kershaw almost placed his manager in a happily uncomfortable position by no-hitting the Marlins for the first seven innings, utterly dominating them while running his pitch count over 100. You could see by the look on Joe Torre's face that he wasn't quite sure what to do, until a Cody Ross double in the eighth inning allowed him to yank his talented left-hander.

So despite all the consternation over Ramirez, all of the internal angst, the Dodgers have plowed ahead with Orlando Hudson raking in the No. 3 spot in their lineup, and L.A.'s lead over the Giants has been pumped up to six games.

Torre joked that he could've set aside all the Manny questions with his Kershaw decision if the no-hitter had continued, Kevin Baxter writes. The Dodgers are winning despite the struggles of Rafael Furcal.

The Brewers. On April 21, their record was 4-9 and some rival talent evaluators were beginning to comb over their rosters in very early preparation for a possible midseason sell-off. Their CC-less starting pitching looked to be too thin, their young lineup inconsistent. But the Brewers are now on a serious roll that has taken them to the top of the NL Central: Milwaukee has won 19 of its past 24 games, including wins on Saturday and Sunday in which the Brewers surrendered a total of three runs to the injury-plagued Cardinals.

Ken Macha talked in mid-April about how much he looked forward to the return of the injured Trevor Hoffman to this bullpen, because of the structure and stability the right-hander would provide. Hoffman's presence would allow other guys to slide back into their prescribed roles. But at age 41, Hoffman has meant even more than that so far -- he has allowed just three hits and no walks and not a single run in 10 outings.

The Brewers might get some bad news, though -- Rickie Weeks injured his wrist, and is off to see a specialist. Craig Counsell has been playing well, Tom Haudricourt writes.

The Yankees. They pulled out three consecutive walk-off wins against the Twins over the weekend, their first three-game streak of walk-off wins since 1972. The Yankees haven't had a lot of fun this year, from the day they showed up to spring training through the early days of the A-Rod revelations, but Sunday ended with Johnny Damon tossing his helmet in the air as he neared home plate after hitting a home run into the second deck, and A-Rod, of all people, leaping to catch the helmet like a bridesmaid going for the bouquet. And here is more good news, perhaps: Chien-Ming Wang is due back soon.

The Yankees have been handing around a black and gold belt to the guy who leads them, Jack Curry writes. From the Elias Sports Bureau: The Yankees are the first major league team with three consecutive walk-off wins since the Diamondbacks in 2007 (July 26 to 28), but no American League team had turned that trick since the 2004 Tigers (June 26 to 29). The Yankees have had three straight walk-off wins seven other times in their history (most recently in 1972), but only twice against one opponent (1910 versus Cleveland and 1931 versus Detroit).

For the Yankees, it's suddenly pie in the sky, writes Ken Davidoff.

The Tigers. They did what they are supposed to do against a struggling team like the Athletics, sweeping them, but along the way Detroit mounted comebacks and put up bushels of runs, scoring 34 in three days. Magglio Ordonez might still officially be a part of the Detroit lineup, but Clete Thomas has been the guy who has been written into the three-hole in the past three games. Ramon Santiago is ridiculously hot, and has posted your basic .352 batting average, and a quarter of the way through the season, only Zack Greinke has a lower ERA in the AL than Edwin Jackson.

Armando Galarraga got bailed out on Sunday, but his spot in the rotation might be in jeopardy, writes Vince Ellis.

The Rays. Friday's win seemed to contain some of the joy that Tampa Bay played with in 2008. Granted, Cleveland's bullpen is stunningly bad right now, but the Rays' lineup depth seemed to really manifest over the weekend -- just as lead-off man B.J. Upton began to swing the bat like he's capable of swinging the bat.

The Rays won on Sunday despite messing up their lineup card. They think one of their guys was thrown at, and they say there's a time and a place for retaliation. Maddon took the blame for the lineup snafu.

Moves, deals and decisions

To continue reading Buster's blog, with recent and expected moves, injury updates and much more, please join ESPN Insider.