These division rivalries are already heated. Which will be the best race? 

One of the fun aspects of the major division races happening so far is how familiar -- and spicy -- they are.

We already saw two of them vividly this week. In the NL Central, the Cubs and the Brewers were back at it for three gripping games at Wrigley Field. It was a battle of the top two franchises in the division for the last half-decade -- though the Brewers will happily remind you that they are the team that has won the Central in each of the past three years, with the Cubs finishing second.

And in a perhaps even more contentious rivalry series, the Dodgers and Padres -- the mechanical rabbit of the NL West and the greyhound forever chasing it -- renewed their Southern California drama for the rest of the world to see.

We learned plenty from those games, and this weekend, we’ll learn even more in the AL East. The Yankees, fresh off a series against another division rival in the Blue Jays, now host the Rays, who recently sped past them in the standings. It’s the scrappy rebels against the empire they’re always trying to take down -- a season after said rebels actually played all their home games at the Yankees’ Spring Training stadium.

Each division has its rivalries, of course. The Phillies, Mets and Braves are always after each other in the NL East, the Guardians and Tigers have battled for the past two seasons (and postseasons) in the AL Central, and the Astros and Mariners have gone back and forth lately in the AL West. But none of those are close right now. The Braves hold a nine-game division lead, the Guardians are up 9 1/2 games on the last-place Tigers, and the Mariners and Astros sit in third and fourth, respectively, looking up at the first-place A’s.

So let’s focus on the three heated rivalries that are currently sizzling -- thanks in part to head-to-head matchups this week -- and look like they will remain that way throughout the rest of the year. Which seems most primed to go right down to the wire? Let’s rank them and look at what we have learned so far and how they might play out.

1. AL East: Rays vs. Yankees
Current standings: TB up 4.5 games on NYY

It wasn’t long ago that we thought this might be the best Yankees team of this era. An offense that was once “Aaron Judge and a bunch of guys who hopefully find a way to get on base when Aaron Judge is up” had muscled up, to the point that Judge now doesn’t even have the highest OPS in his own lineup. (That would be Ben Rice at 1.029, but with his .935 mark, Judge is hardly slacking.) Add that to a rotation that was holding up even before getting top starting pitchers Carlos Rodón and Gerrit Cole back from injury, and this looked like the Yankees team their fans had been waiting for.

But then two things happened: Max Fried got hurt on May 13, and the Rays exploded. They now have won 21 of their last 25 games -- including a sweep over the Yankees last month -- and haven’t lost any of their last eight series. They’re also 13-2 against the AL East, a division that was supposed to be tightly contested but one they’re now trying to run away with.

That’s what makes this weekend’s series so fascinating: The Yankees, in control so recently, are now just trying to make sure the division doesn’t get away from them. It’s the perfect time for Cole to make his season debut on Friday night, with the Rays in town and feeling like they’re on top of the world. The Rays have ridden their starting pitching to all this success -- their starters boast a 3.00 ERA, the best in baseball -- but even with Fried’s absence, the return of Cole and Rodón would seem to give the Yankees a surface advantage.

If the Yankees can restore a little order this weekend, at least winning two out of three, it’s not difficult to see them crawling their way back above the Rays. But then again: If things go wrong in the Bronx between now and Memorial Day, the Rays’ division lead could balloon to a level that may take the Yankees the entire summer to overcome, if they even can.

2. NL Central: Brewers vs. Cubs
Current standings: MIL up 1.5 games on CHC

A week ago, the Cubs looked like the best team in baseball and the class of a division that didn’t have a single team with a losing record. But one home sweep at the hands of the Brewers now has the Cubs in the midst of a five-game losing streak, knocking them out of first place and into the NL Central scrum that has all five teams within five games of each other.

Still, even with the Cardinals surprising, the Pirates clearly improving and the Reds very much hanging tough, the Cubs and the Brewers look like the class of this division, yet again. The issue with the Cubs has been their rotation, which has been absolutely ravaged by injuries and was hit with another one on Wednesday, when Edward Cabrera had to leave his start early with a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand. The Cubs have the 19th-best starter ERA in the Majors, and some of that is boosted by pitchers no longer available.

Meanwhile, the Brewers have the third-best rotation in the Majors, led of course by Jacob Misiorowski, who might just be the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball right now (and maybe the hardest-throwing starting pitcher of all time). The Cubs are going to have to scramble to improve their starting pitching; the Brewers are not only set, but they’ve got plenty of depth and a bullpen that’s the sixth best in baseball.

Add that to a lineup that has Jackson Chourio back and Brice Turang playing like a superstar, and it looks like the Brewers are just now beginning to hit their stride, even if they’re not typically doing it with power. You don’t want to be a prisoner of the moment here, but that three-game sweep at Wrigley didn’t look like an outlier; it looked like the future of this division. Again.

3. NL West: Dodgers vs. Padres
Current standings: LAD up 1.5 games on SD

For one night, anyway, the Padres had caught that mechanical rabbit. After their win at Petco Park on Monday night, the Padres took a half-game lead on the Dodgers in front of a typically roaring crowd that’s always frothing for a chance to take down the two-time defending champs.

But then the Dodgers, well, did what the Dodgers do: They let their stars take over. On Tuesday night, Freddie Freeman hit two homers in a 5-4 Dodgers win -- even handing all-world closer Mason Miller his first Padres loss. And on Wednesday night, Shohei Ohtani started the game off with a homer and then threw five shutout innings, as one does, in a 4-0 Dodgers win. Just like that, the Padres were left chasing first place again. Off the mechanical rabbit went, once more.

So yeah, par for the course. All told, the Dodgers should probably have a better record than they do, and be further ahead of the Padres than they are. Los Angeles is first in the Majors in OPS and third in ERA. It’s fair to say that’s a pretty solid formula for winning right there. The Dodgers are three games behind the Braves in the standings but have the same run differential, a differential that’s a whopping 95 runs ahead of the Padres, who basically have the peripherals of a .500 team. San Diego is better than that, obviously, and eventually, Fernando Tatis Jr. is going to hit a home run; in fact, he’s going to hit a whole bunch of them.

But the Dodgers, even as they get older and suffer more injury woes, have a foundation that’s considerably sturdier than that of the Padres. That’s how you win two World Series in a row, after all. The Padres lost some tough games this week, but when you look at the fundamentals of these two teams, here’s guessing that the lead they took on Monday night, and then lost on Tuesday night, could very well be the last one they have this year.