A lot has been made about the Houston Astros and their hot start, and for good reason -- they have the best record in baseball and are a near lock for the playoffs, according to our metrics. But what about the National League West coming in hot to potentially be the league's most competitive division?

There are five MLB squads who currently boast 40-plus wins, and the NL West is home to three of them: The Los Angeles Dodgers, Colorado Rockies, and Arizona Diamondbacks. It's such a tight race at the moment that only one game separates these three, while the other two squads in the division -- the San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants -- are 17.5 and 20.0 games out of first place, respectively.

The Rockies and D-Backs have been consistently good all year, but it's the Dodgers who started slow and maybe aren't getting as much credit for how well they've played recently. After a 2-1 loss to the Giants on April 24th, manager Dave Roberts' club sat at just 9-11. All Los Angeles has done since then is this.

These three are also in control of the playoff race -- the Rockies are currently in first place, while the Dodgers and D-Backs hold down the two wild card spots. The next-closest team to them? The Chicago Cubs, who are 35-34 and a full 8.5 games off the pace. With none of these three NL West squads boasting current playoff odds lower than 85.9%, it appears that they have their destiny in their own hands.

Who else has seen their stock rise or fall over the last week?

Unlike some other power rankings around the interwebs, ours here at numberFire aren't influenced by hype or the latest narratives. We put faith into our algorithms and use nERD to see which team is the best, which is a metric that represents runs scored above or below a league-average team per game.

Our rankings will include each team's nERD, their current record and playoff odds, along with how much their spot has changed over the past seven days.