AL East April Wrapup and a Good Weekend Series

So April is gone and the AL East is in disarray with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays playing the Baltimore Orioles for first place at the end of the month. That’s as unexpected as it can be, and, indeed, I don’t think it will last much longer. Tampa Bay is now heading for Boston, the team without a doubt is the best one in the division. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tampa Bay gets swept in Boston, but even if they don’t, in the long run Boston should prevail. I don’t want to sound as if I hate Tampa Bay. In fact I think it would be nice if they can finally put together a winning season, and, why not, a run for the wildcard. I don’t see how that can happen.

As expected, the Yankees are showing their lack of experienced, reliable pitching. They basically have only two aces, Pettitte and Wang. Mussina is declining and the other guys are just too young. No way they can challenge Boston that way. Some people are now blaming the Yankees for not getting Johan Santana. I don’t think only Santana would have made a lot of a difference, although it might have given them an good one-two punch in the rotation now that Wang is as sharp as ever. In the end it’s probably better for the Yankees to bite the bullet, swallow another season without a World Series and rebuild their team. To their fan’s advantage, man-myth Joe Torre is not there anymore and now they can freely and wildly blame the manager for their pitching miscues.

Back home, the Toronto Blue Jays, my “official” team (I live 500km away from Toronto but I’m in the Blue Jays blackout zone, which is all of Canada, all the 9 million square kilometers of it), had yet again a disappointing April with a disastrous road trip to end the month. The two losses in Boston were crushing, but it seems to be always like that with Toronto, they’re always on the verge of winning, and then they drop the ball. Let’s hope May bring something different to Toronto.

As for the Orioles… well, I have nothing to say, that’s a mysterious team. Are they good, are they bad? I don’t know. I’m going to have to watch them at least once to be able to say something.

For the time being, however, I’m going to switch to the NL Central, where there’s an interesting match up over the weekend: the 17-11 Chicago Cubs are facing the 18-11 St. Louis Cardinals.

Did I Just Jinx Aaron Falley?

Here’s what happened: I wasn’t going to watch any game tonight, but as I was browsing around and unconsciously hit the MLB.com link I have in my home page I noticed that Aaron Falley of the Cleveland Indians was pitching a no-hitter at the end of the 5th. So I went and turned on the TV hoping that one of the Canadian sports channels had decided to show the game.

Rogers Sportsnet had, so I turned in just in time to watch Falley surrender his first hit of the night. It was just the beginning of a terrible top of the 6th. The Yankees have scored 4 times so far and I’m not watching any more.

The Mets Finish Off Atlanta

So, Carlos Delgado hit a couple of home runs today and then refused to get out of the dugout for a curtain call. Either he’s saving the bowing until after he’s sure he’s out of his slump (two home runs do not erase a .160 average right away) or he’s retaliating for all the booing of the past few days. I’m more inclined to think that it’s just another case of a millionaire slugger with a bruised ego.

Not much else to say about this one. Smoltz got whacked early on, Figueroa had a pretty good afternoon and Billy Wagner sealed the game off in spite of having allowed his first hit of the season.

Here’s the scorecard for the game, now in blue ink

The Flu, The Tampa Bay Devil Rays And Other Nuissances

I sure know about this flu that is taking down so many players. I’ve had it since almost a week ago. It started with a weird stomach ache, then it turned into headache and runny nose, and it hasn’t gone away. Not very pleasant indeed.

Many ballplayers have it too. I know for sure of Varitek, Beckett and now Matsuzaka in Boston and I just heard that Blue Jay Alex Ríos has been out for two days because of it. I hope it doesn’t become an epidemic. I’m doing my part by staying home.

Now that I mention the Jays, I’m sitting in front of the TV watching them face the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in a small ballpark in Orlando. Has MLB finally realized that Tampa Bay is actually a Minor League ball club? I’m sure they know; I suppose MLB is simply hoping that yet another sucker of a community will fall for their new-ballpark-or-we-leave scam and surrender their taxpayer’s money.

Of course, the Jays are not much better. I’m feeling more and more disappointed with this year’s team as the season progresses. On top of that, Goofy is waving to the crowd in Orlando as I write; I can’t stand Goofy. Stupid Goofy, stupid Jays and stupid flu.

Let’s Bring Sammy to the Jays!!!

So, the Jays got rid of Frank Thomas’ $10,000,000 clause. No matter what management says, of course it was all about money. Forget about a slow start and all that nonsense, money is all that matters in professional baseball. The First and Only Commandment in the majors is: “Spend as little as you can while still making a nice return on investment on the team”. Wins, losses, batting averages, ERAs, attendance numbers, new ball parks, game day experience, records, sportsmanship, steroids, etc, only being important insofar as they have some relation to the bottom line.

Anyway, now there’s a free spot for a DH in Toronto and, again, independently of what JP Riccardi might have said about filling the spot from within, if there’s a good bargain to be picked up somewhere, they will pick it up. As far as I know, the Jays may have already signed Barry Bonds by the time I finish writing this post; at least one blogger thinks it can be a good idea. Signing Bonds may end up being, as another blogger said, the circus coming to Toronto, but that, of course, it’s only secondary to management.

The reason I think the Jays will not sign Barry Bonds is that Bonds will be probably too expensive. He made $15 million last year and we all know he has an stratospheric ego that won’t let him go down enough. Besides, he might be just fine out of the spotlight nowadays.

Mike Piazza is also free, but as pointed out here, it is suspicious that he hasn’t signed with anybody already. The “Piazza is Gay” rumours I suppose, or at least hope, are irrelevant for Toronto. Piazza, however, might be also too expensive. He also made a lot of money last year with Oakland.

That brings me to the real bargain out there: Sammy Sosa. He’s actually 2 months younger than Piazza (and 9 months younger than Matt Stairs), had a better slugging season than Piazza (21 HR as opposed to 8 just to point out to a single statistic) and made only $500,000. He probably didn’t sign with Texas again because they wanted him to agree only to a Minor League deal. I’m pretty sure Sammy would come to Toronto for not a lot more than half a million if given a Major League contract and the opportunity to play at least part time as they supposedly wanted Thomas to play.

So, let’s call him down to wherever he is sunbathing in the Caribbean and bring him to Toronto!!

Now That’s The Santana We All Know and Love…

Last night’s game between the Mets and the Phillies was a good one. Johan Santana pitched as the excellent pitcher that he is striking out 10 Phillies and not giving up a single walk. Only in the 8th inning, after having thrown around a 100 pitches, was he vulnerable.

Cole Hamels also had a more than decent night conceding only a couple of runs up until the 8th and then again both driven in by David Wright, who was on fire last night. Wright was 4 for 4 with a walk in his 5 plate appearances.

In the 8th, with both pitchers tiring and the bullpen coming in, both teams scored 3 runs. The Mets got an insurance run in the 9th and then Billy Wagner retired the side in order to get the save.

The scare of the night was José Reyes‘ head on slide into second base in the 3rd. As he was sliding in to the base, he banged his head on to Utley’s right knee. It took him several minutes to recover from the shock and at some point it seemed as though he was going to be taken out of the game. Minutes later he was scoring the Mets’ second run of the night on Wright’s triple.

Here’s the scorecard:

Watching Baseball With A Cold

The worst happened: I do have a cold. I spent most of yesterday with a runny nose incapable of doing any real work and having baseball on TV as a background noise. Here’s some notes:

• Is Prince Fielder fat or what? Once I said something about Miguel Cabrera being overweight, but Fielder is just unbelievable. Not that I have something against fat people. In fact I can be considered fat depending on who you compare me with, but baseball players are supposed to be athletes. Even if you gain some power by being heavier, I bet you can be more effective if you trade some fat for some muscle.
• Colorado beat San Diego in 22 innings and 6 hours of play. That’s only 1 to 2 hours more than a regular 9 inning Boston-New York game. No big deal.
• Texas beat the Blue Jays again. What’s going on Toronto? Once more the Blue Jays are setting up us fans for a roller coaster season. As soon as fans think they’re on a roll, there comes a lousy team and beats them twice in a row.

Weekend Baseball Viewing
I’m still undecided about it, although I’m definitely not watching any AL East team. Too much Boston and New York for me this week. Initially I wanted to watch the Dodgers-Braves series, but after watching parts of the Dodgers-Pittsburgh series earlier in the week I’m not very excited about it anymore. San Diego-Arizona looks good, and so does New York-Phillie. I’ll probably watch Johan Santana’s start tonight.

I Just Hit My Curfew

Well, it’s 10:40 pm and the Yankees and the Red Sox are only up to the top of the 8th having scored already 20 runs between the two. I’m going to bed now, hoping that my cold-like symptoms are just that, cold-like. Perhaps I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and they’ll still be playing.

PS. The Tigers seem to be waking up. Finally. I hope it’s not too late.

NY Yankees @ Boston - Series Wrapup

Last night’s game was too long for my taste. How come New York and Boston end up playing 4hr long games all the time? In any case, Boston simply took advantage of NY’s rookie pitcher Hughes and then managed to preserve the lead in spite of Mike Timlin giving up, again, the big hits to Giambi and company. Matsuzaka was shaky; too many walks but too much luck having an excellent defense behind him.

In the end Boston won the series 2-1. Offensively for Boston Ramírez, Youlikis and Pedroia took care of business with 4 hits each one. Except for Timlin Friday and Sunday, and Okajima Saturday, the bullpen was sharp. As for New York, great offensive perfomances by bench players Molina and González with 5 hits each. Cano and A-Rod were pretty much silenced in this series. On the pitching side for New York it’s of course Wang who gets the credit.

Here’s the scorecard for last night’s game:

Manny Strikes Back

This second game of first Yankees-Red Sox series of the year was a good one. Beckett was sharp for 5 innings, and so was Mussina. Basically all the scoring happened in the 6th Manny’s 3 RBIs in the top of the inning and the Yankee’s small ball plus Beckett’s miscues in the bottom.

Both bullpens were sharp except for Okajima, who was pitching for the second time in the series and got into trouble in the 8th only to see Papelbon getting him out of the jam. Papelbon’s striking out A-Rod after 2+ hours of rain delay, and his retiring the side in order in the 9th sealed the game for Boston.

Offensively the difference was Manny Ramírez and his timely hitting that saved the day for Boston now that Big Papi is in an unbelievable slump. The bottom of the lineup for Boston is also disappointing; Casey and Lugo are 0 for 5 and 0 for 6 respectively in this series.

Here’s my scorecard for the game (click on the image to see it bigger):