It’s still early, but it’s not April anymore.

Going to MLB.com, I was greeted with a graphic that showed the following stats:

MLB leader in RBI: Josh Hamilton
MLB leader in strikeouts: Edinson Volquez

Anyone see that happening?  It’s been a crazy season so far, and almost 1/4 of the way through the season now, we may have to start taking some of these surprises seriously.

In first place right now: Minnesota, Oakland, Florida and St. Louis. Let’s hope this lasts all year (except for Oakland). As we saw in last year’s NL, playoff races involving most of the league are extremely fun to watch.

I’ve been busy lately and haven’t blogged that much here lately, but will try to again soon. I have been keeping up my blogging at Bugs & Cranks, check out my latest post. And I know this video is a few days old now, but as a blogger who likes mascots way too much, I have to post this here:

Ouch.

UCLA roundup

It’s a big weekend for sports at UCLA.

Women’s water polo: they’re in the NCAA Championships this weekend, beating Pomona-Pitzer 19-6 on Friday. They advance to the NCAA Semifinals today (4 p.m.) to face UC Davis.  UCLA is now 31-0.

If UCLA wins today, they will play the winner of USC-Stanford in the championship game at 6 p.m. (televised on CBS College Sports, the channel formerly known as CSTV.) A championship would be #101 for the school, the first since the women’s water polo team won #100 last year. Bruins Nation has a pretty good preview of the tournament. Also, you can get a free live audio broadcast of today’s semifinal here.

Basketball News: No official word yet on whether J’Mison Morgan is transferring to UCLA, but there is a website set up to encourage LSU to release him out of his NLI. 

I’m not just saying this as a UCLA fan, but it’s a shame college athletes aren’t allowed to transfer to another school more easily. They’re not getting paid by their schools (at major schools, the scholarship isn’t fair compensation for the millions of dollars generated by college sports), so why not give them more rights in choosing where to play.

Women’s tennis: The UCLA women’s tennis team won its first-round NCAA Tournament game on Friday, beating Buffalo 4-0. The Bruins (the No. 7 seed nationally) will host Denver in today’s second round (3 p.m.) with the winner going to the Sweet 16 in Tulsa next week.

You can get live stats of the women’s and men’s matches on Saturday here.

Men’s tennis: UCLA plays its first-round NCAA tournament game today at noon against Eastern Washington. If the Bruins win, they play the winner of Washington and Wisconsin on Sunday. The Daily Bruin has a preview here.

Women’s golf: UCLA has completed two of three rounds at the NCAA Central Regional, with the top eight teams advancing to the NCAA Championships. The Bruins are in first place right now, six strokes ahead of second place and 26 ahead of ninth place. Their chances of advancing look very good. (You can follow the tournament live at golfstat.com)

Softball: #3 UCLA finishes its regular season today at Oregon State. The NCAA Selection show is on Sunday (7 p.m., ESPNU or 7:30 p.m., ESPNEWS). Not that it matters overly a lot, but the Bruins are one game behind Arizona State for first place in the Pac-10 heading into today, and need a win and an ASU loss to share a Pac-10 title.

Baseball: UCLA is playing a big series this weekend at Oregon State. ryebreadraz has an excellent preview of the series at Bruins Nation. UCLA lost the first game of the series on Friday 10-1.