Two weeks in, and all we've learned is:

1. The Arizona Diamondbacks are for real. The youngest team in the major leagues on Opening Day (at an average age of 27 years, 184 days, ahead of the Oakland Athletics' 28 years, 14 days) had their eight-game unbeaten streak end Sunday but my god have they come out of the blocks. Tonight, they'll have Randy Johnson making his first start and if the Big Unit can give them anything at all they could run away and hide with the NL West. During their streak, the Diamondbacks - who allowed more runs than they scored en route to winning the division last year - had a plus-40 run differential. Justin Upton had five home runs in the first 11 games and among all players under the age of 21 only Al Kaline (1955) and Miguel Cabrera (who had six in the 2004 Marlins first 11 games.) It's early, and let's see how they do when they play the likes of the Cubs, Phillies and Mets. But I wouldn't be surprised if they end up with the best record in the NL;

2. The New York Yankees are a 200-and-some-million-dollar work in progress, especially if catchers Joe Molina and Jorge Posada are as hurt as everyone thinks they are. Tough to read too much into what happened this weekend at Fenway Park, but I know that one scout told me during spring training that he had some concerns about what he said was a "lack of consistent quality" to Phil Hughes' fastball. Hmm. Sunday night, as Bob Klapisch points out in this summation, Hughes ticked 91 MPH  on the radar gun and Joel Sherman says that Hughes and Ian Kennedy are killing the Yankees and it's April ... what ..... April 14th? I have bigger issues with the way Joe Girardi managed in the series against the Red Sox, which is a measuring stick whether it's in April, May, September or October. Pitching to Manny Ramirez on Saturday was stupid. Leading 2-1, he let Mike Mussina talk him into pitching to Ramirez, who doubled on the first pitch making the score 3-2 and sending the Red Sox on to victory. Joe Torre intentionally walked Ramirez 23 times in his Yankees career precisely for that reason. Andy Pettitte said later he liked Girardi's decision because it indicated to him that the manager was going to rely on veteran leadership from Mussina and Pettitte. (Note to Girardi: they're pitchers. They live in a different universe than the rest of us - plus, Mussina's from Stanford, and there's something about players from Stanford ....) Sunday night, with another national TV audience looking on, Girardi ended up pinch-running for Molina in the eighth inning. OK, so Molina's hamstring was sore. But the end result was that Jorge Posada, whose right shoulder is so sore that some believe he's taken a big step closer to being a DH, needed to catch the remainder of the game. Guess what? The Red Sox ran on Posada in the bottom of the eighth when Coco Crisp singles, stole second with a throw, then scored on a couple of fly balls. Bingo: insurance run. Girardi had two on, none out in the eighth and could have had Johnny Damon bunt. Instead, Damon hit into a double-play. Hey, first-guessing and second-guessing is at best a fool's obligation, but the sense here is Girardi's going to find that the type of micro-managing that worked with the Florida Marlins may not fly with the veteran-laden Yankees. I'm not saying the two sides won't find an accomodation - once Derek Jeter gets back in the field, things have a way of working out - but I am saying that Girardi flunked his first big test.;

3. The Detroit Tigers suck. They can't pitch, they can't score, manager Jim Leyland has blistered the team and they're coming to Toronto this weekend - which is why if I'm the Blue Jays, I'm scared as hell. This is one of those law of averages things waiting to happen;

4. Canajun Erik Bedard isn't exactly a lock to make his next start, let alone win the Cy Young Award. Look, you hate to rag on a Canadian, but he's been scratched twice by the Seattle Mariners, and it raises something I keep reminding people: as good as Bedard's stuff is, he has yet to pitch 200 innings in a season. There are scouts who wonder about his adherence to his conditioning program - lots of them - and, frankly, whether the guy gets the rest he needs during the regular season. And while we're at it, our guy Russell Martin of the Los Angeles Dodgers has been plagued by the same malaise that's hit the rest of his teammates: a .146 average? C'mon. Speaking of the Dodgers, Esteban Loaiza is unhappy at the way manager Joe Torre bounced him from a start and is likely going to become the first player to talk himself out of town, which will no doubt come as a huge shock to anybody who has covered him or been a teammate;

5. It might be time to put the Oakland Athletics three-game sweep of the local nine in perspective, since the Athletics did go on and beat the leveland Indians twice in three games. Caught a bit of their game against Fausto Carmona and was amazed at how their young guys didn't even flinch at a pitch out of the strike zone. I mean, they didn't bat a friggin' eyelash! Maybe Blue Jays manager John Gibbons wasn't just covering his butt when he told me that some of the Athletics young hitters just seemed to be completely dialled in. They sure looked that way against the Tribe;

6. Nobody will say it, but I have a difficult time believing that B.J. Ryan would be with the Blue Jays were it not for the fact that Jeremy Accardo's bread-and-butter splitter has been, in the words of a person close to the team, "complete crap." If it's a mechanical flaw, that's one thing. If it's something else ... well, Accardo can't simply rely on his fastball and slider. It's going to be interesting to see how Gibbons manages the ninth inning on days in which Ryan can't go. It's also going to interesting to see which catcher comes up if Rod Barajas' groin kicks up.