If you're a baseball fan who likes surprises, then the 2008 season has been a special treat. The Rays are the most notable team that has exceeded expectations, but the Twins, White Sox and Marlins are also surprise contenders.

Of course, those pleasant surprises have come at the expense of several clubs expected to be much better this season. Whether because of a big free-agent signing last winter, a deep October run last season or the (hint, hint) crushing burden of a massive payroll, the baseball landscape is littered with flops as August comes to a close.

The following is a countdown of the seven most disappointing teams this season.

7. Padres: Mired in last place in the abysmal NL West, it's easy to forget that this team won 89 games last year and was a (phantom?) Matt Holliday slide away from a playoff spot. Even when they were winning division titles, the Padres operated on a thin margin. Injuries and underperformance are at the root of their struggles.

Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Kouzmanoff and Brian Giles are the only offensive regulars who have played more than 100 games. Ace Jake Peavy spent a month on the disabled list, while No. 2 starter Chris Young has made only 13 starts. Veteran closer Trevor Hoffman has also been extremely shaky.

There's traditionally always talk from the fans about wanting their teams to lose towards the end of the NFL season once mathematically locked out of the playoffs. We all know why, and it's a good reason. I can't say I was excited that the Bears pulled off two meaningless wins late in the season to cost themselves about five draft spots.

The NBA in recent years has seen massive tanking -- especially in the Greg Oden/Kevin Durant sweepstakes -- to the point that league officials started to voice concern.

You never really hear that talk in baseball because of the dynamics of the sport, the draft, and the farm systems. Usually you draft a guy and it takes him at least two -- and most of the time three -- years before he can help you. Even then you can't really be sure the impact he'll have.

Enter Stephen Strasburg, San Diego State phenom hurler who once punched out 23 Utes. That's right, Utes.

You're hearing the tank-talk now, and this is why:

"Put him behind Jake Peavy and Chris Young in Petco Park, you can come back in a hurry," a National League scout said.

No, no ... this isn't a case of a minor leaguer being traded for maple bats. Nope, the hamburger is question is righty pitcher Mark Hamburger. So yes, Eddie Guardado is worth more than ground beef patties. He's certainly worth more than that to the Twins, who have brought him back for the minor leaguer.

Guardado has had a nice bounce back season for Texas after two injury plagued seasons for the Reds, going 3-3 with a 3.65 ERA, a 1.11 WHIP, 23 holds and four saves. Key is that hitters are batting .220 off of Guardado, while the Twins bullpen is in the lower half of baseball with a .262 BAA. Guardado had recently returned to closing for Texas after the injury to C.J. Wilson, but its obvious that at the age of 37, his value is greater as a set-up guy for a contender than as a closer for a .500 team ... especially at this point, where the only lefty the Twins could bring out of the 'pen these days was Craig Breslow (edit: and Dennys Reyes). So to the Twins, Guardado isn't exactly chopped liver (or chopped steak.)

It appears that the Dodgers are awfully serious about contending for the NL West title this year. They've been locked in a tie with the Diamondbacks for several days now and by all indications, the race is going down to the wire this year. In anticipation of that, the Dodgers have gone out and added their second future Hall-of-Famer in as many weeks by acquiring Greg Maddux from the Padres tonight.

It's the second time the Dodgers have picked up Maddux late in the season in three years. For all intents and purposes, the Mad Dog is just an average pitcher here in the twilight of his career. Most of his stats look decent this year (3.99 ERA, 1.22 WHIP), but he's pitching in the best pitcher's park in either league in Petco. Still, league average isn't bad and Maddux is still durable, which makes about as good of a replacement as they'll find on the market for Brad Penny, who the Dodgers put on the DL this week.

There's no word who the Dodgers are giving up for Maddux, but it's probably going to be some kind of fringe prospect. Still, Ned Colletti's burning through his reserve of minor league talent pretty quickly this summer in the interest of getting a mediorce team into the playoffs in a year when the National League is pretty top heavy. Given the price the Dodgers have already paid in minor league talent, is a division title and a loss to the Cubs in the NLDS even a success at this point?

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Philadelphia Phillies (65-58) at San Diego Padres (48-75) 8:05 PM ET

Premature to say that this game against the downtrodden San Diego Padres is a must game for the Phillies? Definitely. And just because the Mets are on an upswing against league dregs like Washington and Pittsburgh and the Phillies were swept by a division leader doesn't mean the Phillies are dead and buried. But just five days ago the Phillies were up on the Mets by two games. On this day, it's the reverse. So this is a valley that the Phillies would do well to dig out of starting tonight. The Phillies have the right guy on the mound to do that in Cole Hamels.

Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux know each other very well. The Cubs drafted them both in 1984, 31st and 135th respectively. They were rookies together, played together in Chicago, and have been pitching with or against or amongst each other, win or lose, for the last 24 years.

Last night, the Phillies beat the Padres 1-0. Maddux and Moyer were as they'd been in their primes again, shutting down batters one after another, with only Pat Burrell's late game homerun to spoil the fun. It was a lot like the movie "Space Cowboys," where you realize that the best cowboys are the oldest and Greg Maddux ends up sitting mournfully on the moon.

We've been doing The Dugout since the early 80s so we know these men. We know what they can accomplish. We know the fire that burned in their hearts then and still flickers aflame today. We even know how they managed to have AOL Instant Messenger™ in 1986.

Today's Dugout, about the prices we pay in our youth for the cost of tomorrow's twilight, is after the jump.

A day after the Red Sox made a waiver claim on Brian Giles in an attempt to trade for him, it looks like nothing's going happen and Giles is going to stay home in San Diego for the time being. It's not entirely clear where the talks broke down, but since the Sox seemed interested in adding GIles, the Padres seemed interested in getting rid of his salary, and Giles has a limited no-trade clause that includes Boston as a team he can block a trade to, well, it's pretty easy to guess where to point the finger. From MLB.com:

"All I can tell you is that he was claimed but nothing came to fruition," Giles' agent, Joe Bick, told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Bick said Giles wants to stay with the Padres and that being close to his daughters is a major factor. "He has a great commitment to those girls," Bick said.

If nothing else, the Sox managed to keep him from going to the Angels (who are not on his limited NTC list). They could probably still use a bat in case David Ortiz and/or Mike Lowell's injuries continue to nag, though finding one at this time of year can be difficult. Though there is this one guy who's left-handed, can DH, and I hear is looking for work ...

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Before the season started, the Detroit Tigers were the popular pick amongst baseball fans and experts alike as the eventual World Series champion. After adding Miguel Cabrera to a potent lineup that already included hitters like Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Guillen, Curtis Granderson, and Ivan Rodriguez, there was talk that the Tigers would score 1,000 runs this season.

Who knew they'd need to? Though most people were aware that the Detroit bullpen would be a problem area, I don't think anybody thought they would be as bad as they have been in 2008. So now here we sit on August 7th, and the Tigers find themselves in a tailspin.

After building up some momentum in recent weeks to get back into the AL Central race, the Tigers have now lost six in a row to fall three games under .500. They're also on the verge of being swept by the division leading Chicago White Sox and falling 9.5 games out of first place, which could effectively end any hope they have of playing this October.

So will the Tigers pull the plug on their season tonight, or are they going to rise up and start mauling people again? Find out after the jump.

After two months on the shelf and a couple of set-backs, Adam Wainwright looks like he's finally ready to rejoin the Cardinal rotation. He's got a rehab start tentatively scheduled for Saturday and the injured pulley in his right middle finger doesn't seem to be bothering him at all any more. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Adam Wainwright's arm and finger, if not his mechanics, were strong enough during a simulated game Tuesday for the Cardinals to send the righthander out for a rehab start Saturday. Wainwright threw 35 pitches to teammates Nick Stavinoha and Rick Ankiel in a controlled setting at Busch Stadium. Wild at times, Wainwright also hung a slider that Ankiel crushed for a home run to deep right-center field.

[...]

"I don't think I was very sharp, but I would have gotten some outs today," Wainwright said. "I didn't have a second thought about (throwing a curve). I feel ready to go."

If that's the case, the rehab assignement is necessary to help him get back into the groove of things and he's talking like it should only take one start before he's ready to rejoin the Cardinals. With Chris Carpenter already looking pretty strong in two starts, the Cardinals may have suddenly trumped CC Sabathia's addition to the Brewers by simply getting healthy.

After recording his 100th strikeout of the year, Khalil Greene took out his frustration on a storage chest in the clubhouse tunnel. And just like everything else that's gone up against the Padres this year, the storage chest won. Greene fractured his left hand and will miss the rest of the season. From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

"I don't know how to put into words the frustration level, how difficult this year has been," Greene said. "For me to do that, it's certainly not commonplace."

Greene finishes the year hitting just .213 with 10 home runs and 35 RBI in 389 at-bats, a far cry from last season when he hit .254 with 27 homers and 97 RBI. While it's a little ridiculous for Greene's season to end with a self-inflicted injury, the fact that he's back on the DL is hardly a surprise: since his rookie year, he's played more than 121 games just once in the past four years.

I'm curious: who do you think looks more foolish? Greene, for breaking his hand by attacking in inanimate object, or Matt Bush, the Padres' shortstop-turned-pitching prospect who "suffered bodily harm" (for the life I me I can't find a report saying what exactly he hurt) in a bar fight last month?

A bar fight is more of a PR headache, but at least there's a 50/50 chance Bush was reasonably provoked. Punching a storage chest? That's just dumb. Savvy veterans know that a bat to the water cooler is far more effective.