One possible explanation for pitchers being able to go nine innings, often in inclement weather, this early in the season is that spring training was a week longer this year because of the World Baseball Classic. When the first WBC was held in 2006, players did not have much time to spend in the camps of their original teams either before or after the WBC competition, so extra time was added this year, with major league teams playing some 35 exhibition games apiece.

This means most starting pitchers got six starts in the spring and a few got seven, and they could build up their endurance.

But, interestingly, none of the five complete games pitched in the first week or so (Boston's Tim Wakefield also had one) were by anybody who participated in the WBC, where pitchers probably didn't get the same regular work they would have gotten if they had stayed in their camps.

In fact, many of the star pitchers on those WBC teams have struggled.

USA ace Roy Oswalt had a 6.23 earned-run average after his first two starts. Japanese pitching hero Daisuke Matsuzaka already is on the disabled list. Dominican Republic righthander Edinson Volquez of Cincinnati had a 9.64 ERA after two starts. And Puerto Rican starters Javier Vazquez, Ian Snell and Jonathan Sanchez were a collective 0-4 for Atlanta, Pittsburgh and San Francisco, with a collective ERA of 7.00, while the Cardinals' Joel Pineiro, passed over for the Puerto Rican rotation, stayed home and went 2-0 in his first two starts.

An exception to the rule was Venezuelan righthander Armando Galarraga, who was 2-0 with an 0.68 ERA for Detroit in his first two starts.

NEWS ITEM - The Marlins won eight of their first nine games, tying the best start in their history, and took over the lead in the tough National League Eastern Division.

HUMMEL'S TAKE - This is not to be overlooked because the Marlins rarely have led the division in their 17 seasons in the league and, in fact, never have won the division, although they have won two World Series championships.

Both times the Marlins won the World Series - in 1997 and 2003 - they did it as wild cards.

Of the 30 major-league teams, the Marlins and Colorado Rockies are the only teams not to have won a division title, although the Rockies went to the 2007 Series as a wild card. The Washington Nationals haven't won a division either, but their predecessors, the Montreal Expos, technically were National League Eastern Division champions in the strike year of 1981 because, after the season was split, the second-half champion Expos beat the first-half champion Philadelphia Phillies in a divisional playoff series.

The Milwaukee Brewers never have won a division in the National League, but they were 1982 champions in the American League.

One of the reasons the Marlins got off to such a fast start was the starting pitching quartet of Johnson, Ricky Nolasco, Chris Volstad and Anibal Sanchez. Another was an apparent improvement, or more generous official scoring, relative to the Marlins' often porous defense. In a three-game sweep of the Braves at Atlanta, the Marlins, the second-worst defensive team in the league last year, weren't charged with an error while the Braves made five.