Well for me it is nice to start the month with the Yankees over .500 for a change.
A-Rod is back and Jorge is close. Moose has the most wins on the team and I thought he was the likeliest one to be knocked out of the rotation. Well that is a pleasant surprise at least. I thought Hughes would be a big contributor this year and that has been a very unpleasant surprise and injury.
Meanwhile the improbable Rays who I thought might finally break .500 this year are the best team in the AL and a game up over the Sox and 5½ over the Yanks. Who’d thunk it?
Yet, despite having hordes of Sox fans coming to every road game, Boston has the biggest home/road split in the majors. One day some genius is going to distill everything which the home field advantage consists of, and we will know by how much it comes from having the crowd behind you, being familiar with the ballpark, and simply having your own bed to sleep in.
I think the Rays are for real, but I want to see how they do on this upcoming trip (incl. 3 at Fenway this week).
I don’t believe the Rays will finish in first in the East, but the 1969 Mets are an example of a team that went from never having a winning season* to being a 100 win team and World Series Champions and I am pretty sure no one (except met fans of course) really believed they could do until the end of July that year.
Being a Yankee fan I want to see the Yankees win the division and win it all, but as a baseball fan, I would get a kick out of seeing hapless Tampa pull a miracle Mets season off.
The Rays really have me worried. I think the world has gone topsy turvy. Then again, the Royals did win the Central a few years back and then shit the bed the year after.
This is one post I never thought I’d be making. We have the best record in baseball right now with a .625. When the weather heats up so do our bats, so considering how well we’ve been doing up to this point it ought to be a great month. We really need to improve our away games, if we can do that…
I had a bad feeling when we were down 9-1 the other day, I kept thinking please don’t let this be a start of a slump, but we came back and I couldn’t believe it, who was this team on the field?We don’t snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, it’s always been the other way around. We need Soriano to stay healthy and Edmonds to start hitting. If Marquis and Lilly tighten up their pitching it could be our year.
Go Cubs Go!
LOUNE, you were barely alive the last time the Royals won the division. It was 1985 and the only time they actually won the World Series. It was the last great team they had in a good 10 year run starting in 1976.
The rivalry in those years between Royals and Yanks was good and intense. Nothing like Yanks and Red Sox but it was fun.
The Phillies ended May with an offensive explosion. Ryan Howard is starting to have quality at bats, and I am sure his average will rise with this. In spite of his poor start, he still has 15 home runs. Burrell has cooled a bit, but Utley is hitting up a storm. I am hoping he can continue to play well and bring the Phillies MVP string to 3.
The pitching has been adequate. Hamels has had a couple of bad starts, but he did have a shut out,and I am sure he will be able to turn it around and shut teams down again.
I think the Mets and Braves are going to start making a run for the division lead, soon. If I am wrong and the Mets don’t go on a tear before the All Star break I can’t imagine Randolph remaining there the entire season. I don’t know if that is fair, but after last year’s end of season slide, and this year’s underperformance something has to happen.
Well, the Blue Jays went 20-10 in May, reversing course and getting themselves within four games of - I can’t believe I’m saying this - Tampa Bay.
The combination of a horrific start followed by a big hot streak has, however, basically returned them to the team I predicted they’d be in the first place; a good but not great squad (they are on pace to go 87-75) with terrific pitching - they have allowed fewer runs per game than any team in baseball - and very poor hitting. So, really, they’re doing what everyone expected, and they’re a bit short of the playoffs, which is what everyone expected.
nterestingly, the two hitters I thought would bust out have been bad; Aaron Hill hasn’t progressed at all, and Alex Rios has been a disaster, hitting like a shortstop while playing outfield and being paid like an All-Star. His strikeouts are way up, he can’t elevate the ball for shit - he in on pace to ground into 26 double plays, an astounding number - and he’s got absolutely no power. Rios is going to be the next flameout you hear about; watch for him to be traded in a shitstorm of finger-pointing, accusations and nasty stories sometime in mid-2009. He doesn’t look even the slightest bit interested in playing baseball except when he gets to show off his arm; he’s flailing at the plate and by all accounts won’t work on his problems, and just stops paying attention on those rare occasions when he reaches base.
I should have just saved my money last night. Went to the Oakland/Texas game. Oakland looked pathetic. Blanton gave up 10 hits and 6 runs and looked like he was throwing batting practice.
Josh Hamilton is amazing this year, however. I’ll give him credit.
Supposedly Fernando Rodney is throwing 93 or so and is ready to come up. Zumaya is hitting 97 on the radar gun at Lakeland, Florida. Hopefully they can be brought back into the fold and be good for us. That’ll be HUGE if our bullpen won’t fuck us.
I know it’s still REAL early, but it’s pretty cool to have someone hitting over .400. I said in an earlier thread there was no way Chipper keeps it up the whole season, and I still believe that, but I’m rooting for him anyway.
As for the Yankees, I just don’t see playoffs this year. Not impossible, but the inconsistency is maddening.
If you’ve noticed the talent they’ve stockpiled over all those years of top draft picks, it shouldn’t be a surprise. They just needed some leadership to get them to believe in themselves. If Rocco Baldelli had stayed healthy, this surge might have happened last year.
This is a good thing for baseball, btw. It is bad for the game, and for the business, to have franchises that are not only bad but have no real hope of improvement that they can offer their fan bases. TB is no longer one. Now, they need a real ballpark and a real PR budget … John, I think you’ll find Boston still having a healthy record in Baltimore and St. Pete, their primary homes away from home, if not on the West Coast. They’ve just won 3 straight vs. the O’s, f’rinstance.
The two biggest off-season player movements dealt with Johan Santana and Cabrera/Willis. I think it’s safe to say that no one would have guessed that the teams losing the established talent would both have better records than the teams that gained the talent.
It certainly is a shocker in terms of the Tigers. The Mets maybe less so.
But hey, hasn’t this happened like a zillion times? Every time a big name players switches from Team A to Team B there is wailing and teeth-gnashing in City A and elation in City B, and there’s got to be 20 big time examples where things continued well in City A and didn’t improve in City B. Barry Zito, Mo Vaughn, Bruce Sutter, Adrian Beltre…
I wish. You’re talking about 2003, when the Royals held the division through August, only to fade in September and finish 3rd. It was our only winning season since 1994, and, given what came after, an obvious fluke. Sigh.
We Royals fans had so much hope for improvement going into this season. Well, we’ve won our last two. Only ten more to go and we can erase the bad memories of the losing streak we just endured.
