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Another week, another 10 stories to follow in the world of baseball. Let's go!

1. Failing with RISP means losing ... but it's also nothing to worry about

No team in baseball has fared worse with runners in scoring position over the first week and a half than the Toronto Blue Jays: Through their first nine games, Jays hitters are batting a miserable .143 with RISP. The cruelest blow came Thursday night against the Orioles. Seeking to hand ubercloser Zach Britton his first blown save since September 2015, the Jays had runners at second and third with one out in the ninth, down one run. A Kevin Pillar groundout and Steve Pearce flyout later, the Jays had blown another golden opportunity, dropping their record to an MLB-worst 1-8.

Other RISP stumblers have lost games at a similar clip. The second-worst team batting average with runners in scoring position belongs to the Mariners, at .148; not coincidentally, the Mariners boast the second-worst record in the majors, at 2-8. Run this same exercise for other early underachievers like the 3-6 Royals and Pirates and you'll get similar results. Unless these teams are getting Cy Young-worthy performances from half their pitching staff, or making up for their ineptitude with runners on second and third with an onslaught of homers, this is what you get. And few baseball occurrences get fans more frustrated than the parade of failure in big spots.

The good news is that this kind of suffering rarely lasts for long. Study after study has shown that, given a large enough sample of at-bats, players and teams will eventually revert toward the mean in RISP situations. Exceptions to this rule are exceedingly rare.

The only issue now is figuring out if these slow-starting teams can dig themselves out of their early holes. Even if teams like the Jays start hitting about as you would expect in high-leverage situations, a quick pileup of losses to start the season can definitely hurt your playoff chances.

2. Felix vs. Trout will entertain us forever

Few batters have faced any one pitcher more often over the past six seasons than Mike Trout has faced Felix Hernandez. Even with Hernandez falling a notch from his peak levels, the matchup of these two titans has been fascinating every time, with King Felix's array of diving and darting breaking pitches and changeups squaring off against one of the best low-ball hitters of all time in Trout.

The decisive winner in this battle? Trout, whose mastery of Hernandez has been well documented by many writers. In 88 career plate appearances against Felix, Trout is batting a gigantic .367/.409/.734.

Hernandez got a chance to exact his revenge Saturday. Facing Trout in the first inning, Felix started the Angels superstar with a fastball that clipped the outside corner for strike one. That marked the start of a long adventure. For 12 more pitches, Trout and Hernandez battled. Finally, on pitch number 14, the King came back with a 92-mph heater that clipped the inside corner. Called strike three.

After years of watching balls get belted into the gaps and over the wall against him, Hernandez had prevailed in the longest at-bat of either player's career.

3. Marlins cat finds a home

The St. Louis rally squirrel. The Oakland rally possum. Any time a critter scampers onto the field during a major-league game, he's imbued with fans' optimism, where any positive events that happen thereafter must have been the critter's doing.

On Tuesday in Miami, we got the Marlins rally cat. At Miami's home opener, a stray cat scampered along the warning track, scaled the outfield fence, then shimmied up the home run sculpture behind the wall. The climbing kittie then settled onto the sculpture, ears back, looking slightly panicked to have ended up on the weirdest piece of moving art ever put into a baseball stadium.

The drama did have a happy ending, though. A Marlins employee adopted the cat, then whisked it far away from the neon dolphin hellscape. Truly a purrfect outcome.

WATCH: Hana Ostapchuk joins Bill Reiter to discuss the cat that wandered onto the field at the Marlins stadium on Monday night.

4. Chris Devenski thinks the Andrew Miller Experiment is adorable

Andrew Miller made headlines last season. After coming to the Indians in a deadline deal last summer, the lanky lefty became a shutdown weapon for Cleveland out of the bullpen. Rather than serve as a traditional closer, Miller became manager Terry Francona's go-to option whenever a game got hairy, be it the ninth inning ... or the eighth, seventh, sixth or fifth. Miller would frequently record four, five, six, even seven or eight outs in one appearance. Scores of smart writers thus started speculating about which talented but erratic starting pitchers might become The Next Andrew Miller.

Think of Astros right-hander Chris Devenski as a supercharged version of Miller. Devenski has made two appearances so far this season. He has fired four innings in each of those outings, racking up 14 strikeouts in those eight frames.

This is no fluke either. Devenski quietly finished fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting last year, whiffing 104 batters and walking just 20, with just four homers allowed and a 2.16 ERA ... spread across 108 1/3 innings, with all but five of his appearances coming out of the pen. Armed with one of the filthiest changeups in the game, Devenski is a multi-inning monster in a bullpen loaded with filthy arms.

For manager A.J. Hinch, Devenski's rise offers a difficult but positive choice. The right-hander's stamina and stinginess make him a perfect break-glass-in-case-of-emergency pitcher, able to enter a game in extra innings after the closer and top setup men have been used, and dominate opponents for long stretches while the other team's manager is forced to go to his sixth and seventh options out of pen. Then again, waiting for a hypothetical extra-inning scenario risks missing other opportunities to deploy him. If a starter clearly doesn't have it in the second inning, Devenski could come in and douse the fire, then pitch into the middle innings while the Astros' potent offense shoots for a comeback. Sixth-inning troubles? Devenski could come in and pull off a rare 11-out save.

The possibilities are endless. And some forward-looking quants are already shelving Miller, wondering who might be The Next Devenski.

5. Greg Holland might be the bargain of the offseason

The 2015 Rockies bullpen was bad. Even adjusting for Coors Field's pitcher-crushing tendencies, Colorado relievers collectively ranked 24th in the majors that year in park-adjusted ERA. Rockies GM Jeff Bridich responded by aggressively pursuing relief help, most notably trading four years of young slugger Corey Dickerson to the Rays for two years of lefty closer Jake McGee. Going from pitcher-friendly Tropicana Field to Coors, McGee's numbers got pummeled (even after adjusting for park factors). The Rockies bullpen as a whole likewise got worse in 2016, sliding to 26th in park-adjusted ERA.

This time, Bridich went the free-agent route, a rare occurrence in Colorado given how rarely pitchers want to sign to play at mile-high altitude. Greg Holland didn't have much of a choice, though. The once-dominant Royals closer was returning from Tommy John surgery, making him a big wild card when it came to projected future performance. The Rockies took the plunge anyway, handing Holland a one-year deal worth $7 million guaranteed (plus a 2018 mutual option).

The results have been impressive. Holland has led a resurgence by the Rockies pen, with Colorado ranking sixth in MLB in park-adjusted bullpen ERA. In his first six appearances as a Rockie (covering six innings), Holland has struck out eight batters, allowed five base runners and no runs and registered a league-high five saves. His fastball velocity's down more than two ticks from its 2012-14 peak, but Holland has made up for it by rediscovering vintage form on his slider, while generating a very early 70 percent (!) ground-ball rate.  

In the next few weeks, the Rockies will welcome key position players Ian Desmond, David Dahl and Tom Murphy to the lineup, following early injuries. If Holland and his bullpen mates are still getting batters out by then, all that preseason sleeper hype spinning around the Rockies could start actually bearing fruit.

6. Zack Cozart should bottle his hot start ...

... or maybe just retire on top?

What else can you do when you're leading the majors with a .481 batting average (with a .516 on-base percentage, slugging .706)? Cozart's latest offensive barrage came Thursday against the Brewers. All told, the Reds managed just five hits against starter Jimmy Nelson and the Milwaukee bullpen. But Cozart had three of those five, going 3 for 3. His batting average on balls in play now stands at a league-high .565 -- almost exactly twice as high as the league average. This is, as the kids would say, unsustainable af.

Like the Rockies, the Reds have benefited from a surprisingly strong bullpen in finding some early success, in Cincy's case an NL Central-leading 7-3 record. But the Reds wouldn't be where they are without scorching starts by three decent but not extraordinary hitters: Cozart, Eugenio Suarez (.375/.474/.656) and Adam Duvall (.316/.381/.605).

Sing it if you know it!

7. Syndergaard for Cy Young, MVP and Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedic Role

Through his first two starts of 2017, the Mets ace has struck out 16 batters, walked none and allowed just one run in 13 innings. He's using his nasty sinker more than ever before and generating a massive 64.5 percent ground-ball rate as a result. He throws the hardest average fastball of any starting pitcher in the majors, clocking in at nearly 98 mph (and often touching triple digits). And he gained nearly 20 pounds of muscle over the winter in an effort to add even more juice to his fastball, which is, frankly, meshuganeh.

Not content with merely being transcendent at his craft, Syndergaard has turned himself into one of the great characters in the game. He has developed an ongoing feud with Mr. Met which gets funnier by the day. And he's now expanding his anti-mascot chicanery to other ballparks, stealing the Phillie Phanatic's ATV before a recent Mets-Phillies game.

If you, like me, hypothetically heard of a gummi bear wager that would give you 10/1 odds on a Syndergaard Cy Young award, you might've been advised to look into it. After all, how can you possibly against a man who might actually be Thor, in real life?

8. Byron Buxton struck out 12 times in the time it took you to read this sentence

Think I'm exaggerating? The Twins center fielder struck out twice in five plate appearances Thursday ... and somehow lowered his strikeout rate. Heading into weekend play, Buxton has now whiffed 19 times in 35 PA, for a ridiculous 54.3 percent K rate. And this is no Jim Thome or Adam Dunn story. Against those 19 punchouts, Buxton has managed just one walk in his first nine games of the season.

Small sample size, of course. But the Twins were hoping for better tidings following a 2016 second half in which Buxton's performance surged, with a .497 slugging percentage that overshadowed his mediocre .238 batting average, .315 OBP and 57 strikeouts in 164 PA. With speed and plus range in center field, a version of Buxton that offered a hole in his swing but also ample power to go with his impressive athleticism could offer significant value to the Twins. Instead, you have some worried fans wondering if Buxton still might not be ready to consistently handle major-league pitching, despite crossing the 500 PA mark at age 23.

We're still talking about the former No. 1 prospect in baseball, and even on his worst days you can tell that Buxton is brimming with tools. But talented young players rarely burst onto the scene the way that current stars like Bryce Harper did. For the Twins, The Buxton Project might take a while.

9. Dylan Bundy could be the X-factor in another successful Orioles season

We know they have power, since Baltimore led the majors in home runs last year. We know their bullpen is nearly unhittable, as Zach Britton, his supporting cast and their predecessors have proven for the past half-decade or so. What the Orioles have lacked is strong starting pitching, particularly of the homegrown variety. Kevin Gausman forged a mini-breakout last season. Beyond that, no homegrown O's starting pitcher has been consistently good in a Baltimore uniform since Mike Mussina.

Dylan Bundy offers hope for the end of that run of futility. For more perspective on the 24-year-old right-hander, let's turn to our weekly pitching consigliere, Nick Pollack of PitcherList.com.

Though Bundy's overall numbers were nothing special last year (4.02 ERA, 4.70 FIP), Pollack notes that Bundy missed tons of bats with his changeup (20.8 percent whiff rate) and limited batters to a .147 batting average with his wicked curve ball. Coming into this season, he had two major weaknesses that needed to be mixed: a lack of consistency with his fastball and struggles in the middle innings.

"Bundy's 2016 fastball could touch 98 mph and set the foundation for a nine-strikeout performance, but it could also peel toward the middle of the plate on a moment's notice, conceding one of its 11 allowed home runs," Pollack said. "Meanwhile, when Bundy faced batters the first time through a lineup, he held a respectable 3.61 FIP. By the third pass, his FIP ballooned to 9.30."

The big change so far this season has been the addition of a slider to his repertoire. The Orioles organization has in the past cracked down on his slider usage, fearing it might stunt his development. Set free to use it this year, Bundy has produced an off-the-charts 33.9 percent whiff rate with his slider through his first two starts of 2017 -- a big reason for his sparkling 2.70 ERA and microscopic 1.78 FIP. We'll invoke the small sample size monster until we're blue in the face, of course. But if Bundy has found a reliable pitch he can use to keep batters from sitting on his fastball, the Orioles could have a potential homegrown ace, and a great shot at another playoff run.

10. BURNING QUESTION OF THE WEEK

In our debut of Keri The 10 last Friday, our Burning Question of the Week was how many active major leaguers might one day have a shot at Hall of Fame induction. This week's Burning Question (seriously, can we get Icy Hot or someone similar to sponsor this??) comes to us via Twitter from @LindsayRBarnes:

Great question, Lindsay. And at the risk of provoking claims that I'm dodging controversy ... I would probably go with the same answer. Buck Showalter managed the New York Yankees for four years, shepherding his teams to a combined record of 237-182 from 1993-95, but didn't return for the 1996 season after Showalter's rejection of a two-year, $1.05 million contract offer ended with the Yankees declaring that the team and manager had parted ways. The Yankees won the World Series the very next season, starting one of the greatest dynasties in major league history.

Hired by the Arizona Diamondbacks for the 1998 season, Showalter oversaw a terrible team that first year in the desert. Arizona's fortunes improved greatly over the following two seasons though, the D-Backs going a combined 185-139. But because of the sequence of events -- a 100-win season which gave the Diamondbacks the fastest division title ever for an expansion title, followed immediately by an 85-win season that might've looked good in a vacuum but felt like a letdown after that 1999 magic -- Showalter again got the boot.

Now in his eighth season as manager of the Orioles, Showalter has helped turn a team that stunk for a decade and a half into a perennial winner, with Baltimore making the playoffs three times in the past five seasons. Moreover, the O's have pulled off that trick while playing in the same division as far more well-heeled rivals in New York and Boston. If Bundy's the real deal this year, another playoff berth might await -- hopefully with a better result than last year.

Got a better candidate for best active manager without a World Series title? Send a Tweet to @jonahkeri using hashtag #KeriThe10 to answer this question, and do the same to submit questions for future No. 10s.

Until then, see you right back in this space next Friday!