Category: MLB General

Another old and crafty left-hander has been shipped from a pretender to a contender, but does the three-time All-Star, two-time Cy Young candidate, one-time 20 game winner, still have anything left in the tank?

Will Ryan Howard chase after the Ruth/Maris homerun mark in his first full major league season?

Will Delmon Young’s work with the bat in his hand be enough to erase the memory of his classless act of throwing one?

And how about those Marlins? Their entire team should just be awarded one huge Rookie of the Year Award to share, but will they have enough talent to keep them close in the Wild Card race? I can guarantee that if they make it to the postseason, they’ll be the number one team nobody wants to face.

And, oh, yeah, I almost forgot, we have new top dog.

The Detroit Tigers seem to have lost their stranglehold on the #1 slot, but keep it because they were able to win two games against the division rival White Sox. Perhaps I’m just an optimist in thinking that National League teams have as much chance at winning a World Series as American League teams, but the New York Mets still hold the #2 slot. The Yankees looked primed to make the upward jump after sweeping the Red Sox in a critical five-game series, but then go and lose two of three to the pathetic Seattle Mariners. As they say, I guess that’s why they play the games.

On a more individual note, two veterans changed teams this week: Jamie Moyer brought his 200 career wins to the City of Brotherly Love and Shawn Green takes his 300 career homeruns to the Big Apple. Two other players had significantly different outcomes with non-baseball related ailments: Tom Glavine avoided surgery on a possible blood-clot, while Chan Ho Park went under the knife, hoping to solve internal bleeding.

At this point in the season, we’re starting to separate the playoff contenders from the pretenders. The contenders are mostly the usual suspects, with the addition of the recently red-hot Dodgers, the Twins, who remain within striking distance, and the Reds, if they can maintain at least their wild card lead after an important set with the division leading Cardinals. The pretenders, on the other hand include a mix of the usual suspects and some teams that normally don’t fall into that category. The pretenders: Seattle, who has lost 17 divisional games in a row; Toronto, who continues to firesell its expendable players despite being only 6.5 games out; Atlanta, whose pitching looks worthless for the first time in 15 years; and Houston, who despite only being 6.5 games out, doesn’t look to have any ability of making a late-season run and will probably finish the year well under .500.