This week’s Prospectus Hit List, now in play at BP, has a new leader atop the rankings. The Chicago White Sox have stormed to the number one spot on the strength of a 24-7 record founded on surprisingly good starting pitching (including a couple of last year’s Yankees) and excellent defense (a majors-leading Defensive Efficiency Ratio of .726). The Dodgers have leveled off down at number seven, though they’ve had the nice developments of getting Hee Seop Choi and Jason Phillips involved in the offense, and a makeshift bullpen that’s passed nearly every test in the absence of closer Eric Gagne. The Yankees have inched up to number 20 thanks to an opportune visit from the punchless A’s (slugging .339 and last in the bigs in Equivalent Average).

Since the big shakeup, the Yankee defense, while remaining the worst in baseball, has raised its DER by 10 points to a still-pathetic .661 — a figure that if it held would be the worst in all of baseball since 1972. The Mel Stottlemyre-must-go meme I wrote about ten days ago gained some traction in the mainstream media, with George Steinbrenner firing volleys at the embattled Yankee pitching coach and Joe Torre loyally standing by his man. Steven Goldman and I had planned a back-and-forth volley at his Pinstriped Blog, but events seem to be getting in the way of that taking place in a timely fashion.

The main event standing in the way of that (and the reason for the relative scarcity of my postings here lately) is my impending wedding, which is this coming Sunday, May 15 to the lovely Ms. Andra Laine Hardt at the spectacular Milwaukee Art Museum. We leave for Milwaukee on Wednesday morning and while I might check in now and again over my morning coffee from Milwaukee, chances are I’ll be a bit scarce between now and the return from my honeymoon (Florence and Venice, Italy) on May 29. I haven’t done too much thinking about that trip, but I’m excited for the wedding weekend — bringing together so many friends and family members — with absolutely no reservations about moving forward into the next phase of my life with Andra. We’ve been a couple for four and a half years, living together for the past two, and we’ve been though our share of ups and downs, our bonds growing stronger and closer through it all.

I’ll have at least one more post before I head out….