Let's make it so no teams had any weaknesses, then every team would finish ahead of every other! :p

I think J.A. Happ has officially clinched the #5 spot in the rotation.

Also, nice to see Mayberry Jr. have a nice day. Not an elite prospect, but he could be a decent future option for Ibanez in a few years.

Damn Lidge!

Sorry, my fault. I drafted him in my fantasy baseball league.

Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?

Yeah Lidge is just... bad right now. From a pure misery standpoint, having a closer who blows is it hurts as much as anything.

Holy shit! I just saw what the Mets did... from Santos teeing off on Papelbon to the great defense in the bottom of the 9th. :eek:

Joe Mauer just surpassed his 08 home run total in 78 at bats this year. 10 so far to 9 total last year

now hes 3 away from his career high in a season.

Bet I'm not the only person who had a first reaction of "better have him piss into a bottle".

Nothing against Mauer but that's where we are I think.

It's the era we are in, I honestly truly doubt hes on the juice. but those were my exact thoughts.

Absolutely horrendous call today in the Reds-Indians game. Sizemore drills one to RF, Bruce bobbles it for a while, but gets it into the relay man. Relay goes to 3rd, but it goes through Rosales's legs. Sizemore breaks for home, but Johnny Gomes came in from LF to back up the throw. Gomes throws him out at home with a excellent plate.

But wait. 3rd base umpire rules that Rosales interferes with Sizemore and awards Sizemore home plate. Watching the replay, Sizemore makes no contact, nor does he make any motion to run out of the basepath. He proceeded toward home as if nobody was there.

I can't embed MLB videos, so here's a link to the play: Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | CLE@CIN: Sizemore is awarded home on interference - Video | MLB.com: Multimedia

Was at the park to see the Braves complete a sweep of the Blue Jays. First Braves game I saw this year.

It was pretty cool to see that Chipper's mere presence in the on deck circle seemed to have an effect on the Blue Jays bullpen, because they went and walked a .207 hitter to load the bases, certainly the last thing you want to do in that situation.

Jair didn't look too good, but he still managed 6 IP with only 2 ER. Still worried about the outfield. I don't understand why Diaz isn't starting.

Just saw the box score for the Sox-Mets. I know Papi is a legend in Boston now, but how long can you wait for a guyt o produce before you conclude that he just doesn't have it?

0-5 with 8 LOB today. Now batting .195.

Wait wait......I learned this from the Favre threads. He has earned the right to be in there as long as he wants to be.:D

I wonder what Papi would have to do for Red Sox fans to turn on him like Packers fans did on Favre. Demand a trade to the Yankees after being benched for an above average young hitter?

Well, that tune's been played before. Just knock around the travel secretary, malinger for a bit and generally act like an ass, particularly right before the trade deadline. And take female fertitlity drugs. ;)

hahaha, how could I forget. Gotta love the fickleness of sports fans.

Hey, it's easier than that! Just accept a free agency contract with the Yankees, a la Johnny Damon (of course he was just a mercenary when he went to the Yanks, but not when he signed a FA contract with the Red Sox ;))

Sox fans can turn on their players. Fast. It's all about the team. I don't think a Favre situation is possible.

The red caps look horrible with the Yankee uniform. If they must have the special caps for memorial day, why not use the regular colored caps with a stars and stripes logo?

The bitterness is strong in here today ;)

Ah how beautiful. Angels' Santana only lasts an inning and gives up 7 runs thanks to a 3 run HR by Dye in the 2nd.

White Sox up 7-3. :)

Yay ugly hats!

17-3 sox win. yay hopefully we start rolling now.

I didn't know you were a White Sox fan too :)

One hell of a day for baseball

-There's a 6 for 6 (Freddy Sachez) and 5 for 5 (ARod)
-Indians down 10-0, rally to win 11-10 with 2 in the 8th and 7 in the 9th
-Padres win their 10th straight on a great rally, down 7-1 going into the 8th
-Great pitching between Cards and Milwaukee with a 1-0 10 inning game, only 5 hits the entire game and Carpenter going perfect game into the 7th but being matched with 0's by Gallardo
-Or, if you like offense, aside from the 11-10 game, 5 other teams scored 10 or more runs

If you were a neutral observer and couldn't find something to like today, you just weren't trying

Man, I wish I had been watching MLBN rather than being stuck at work this evening :)

SI

White Sox fan since 1990 , Thats when I started watching Baseball at 6 years old

Ok seriously...Victor Martinez delivers the game-winning hit as the Indians rally from 10-0 down against B.J. Upton's Rays.

Wonder what his thoughts are on insurmountable leads today.

How bush league of the Indians to continue trying when down 10-0

Really? Are you still talking about this? I love all the Indians hatred in this thread.

I don't think it's Indians hatred, but rather continued (and deserved) ridicule of the idea that a team should stop trying to win when it's losing by a large number.

EDIT: Especially in baseball, a game that has no clock or time limit, where you could conceivably score an unlimited number of times.

The Indians aren't important enough for anyone to hate.

I don't think anybody would accuse me of hating them when I picked them to win the World Series this year :)

It's not much to do with the Indians as it is Victor Martinez.

I never said that a team should stop trying to win.

Interesting story at Citi Field tonight. Jose Reyes and Ryan Church were placed on the DL and Carlos Beltran will miss the next three games as he finally takes some time off to heal his leg. Top prospect Fernando Martinez, 20 years old, will make his debut tonight.

That leaves David Wright and Luis Castillo as the only opening day starters in the lineup tonight.

...as long as said team is not taking advantage of their opponent's glaring weakness. We get it.

Eric Gagne to the Can-Am League.

Nope. Never said that either. I said I had Martinez's back on his "Upton broke an unwritten rule" argument. That's all I said. It's over with now so there's really no point in keeping this thing going.

He's done.

I love the Pirates. Their game got pre-empted, in the 6th inning, to show post-game of the Penguins' conference championship win.

Zack throws a complete game but gave up a little dunker run in the first inning and his ERA goes up (from 0.82 to 0.84). 9 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 8 K and improves to 8-1

SI

He's not showing any signs of slowing down.

Chi Sox up 3-0 in the 7th , and Colon looking pretty good so far.

Well, it's bound to happen just on the grounds that no one can keep doing that for an entire season. 0 HRs is insane for him so far this season, for instance. That said, who knows what his final stats could be. I know the answer is "not as good as he's been so far" but beyond that, I don't want to try to handicap.

The one thing I'm a bit worried about is the mileage he's getting on his arm. This is his 5th CG already this year while no one else in baseball has more than 2. And Trey will just keep running him out there while he doesn't trust the bullpen because, while he's not Dusty Baker, he's shown a tendency to abuse SPs he trusts, in particular Greinke and Meche.

SI

Yeah, we made Colon look like Cy Young tonight. :rolleyes:

Welcome to our world. It's a running gag over at RR about the Royals- Cy Lohse, Cy Wellemeyer, Cy Pavano, Cy Outman, Cy Cahill...

That doesn't include nice performances by legitimately good pitchers like Verlander and Lee. And that's just going back the last 2 weeks over the guys who put up quality starts to near unhittable performances against the Royals offense...

SI

I hear ya. Not that we're a Murderer's Row or nothing, but the Angels have been putting up some runs of late, and when they're not getting runs, they're still getting a lot of hits (and just not being clutch, what a shock).

But yesterday and today, we've just hit some weird wall. Maybe it's the Kobe effect except for Vlad, who just came back. As in, before everyone stepped up to play because they knew Vlad wasn't around to save them. Now that he's back, everyone's standing around and waiting for him to take it to the hoop...or something like that.

At least Abreu finally got a HR. How weird. Has a legit 20-HR (min) guy ever taken two months to get a dinger without suffering an injury? Never seen that before.

Ian Snell, man, that dude sucks. It was a heavy rain delay, if you're not trying to make a joke.

Rain didn't stop the Rangers from taking down the Yankees and going another game up on the halos. I can't wait til I go to the double header on Friday!

Wear isn't really a concern. Pitch counts have been very consistent and controlled on Zack. He's been pulled regularly with between 95-110 pitches in most starts. His delivery is pretty smooth and shouldn't cause any additional wear. Also, remember that he sat out a year a couple of years ago. That does wonders for a pitching arm.

On the side, I find the unearned run rule when a pitcher commits an error to be absurd. Detroit's Jackson had two brutal throwing errors last night which lead to two unearned runs. If the pitcher's doing the throwing, it shouldn't be unearned.

Agree. I also think there should be some sort of extra category between unearned and earned runs, something that accounts for runs that come on plays after the initial error. I mean I understand that an inning is prolonged so doing it this way says that the runs shouldn't have happened, but if a pitcher goes on to allow 6 additional baserunners and 5 more runs, to allow him off completely free is crazy IMO.

I know its the Nationals, but I'm really, really impressed with the Mets winning with, basically, a collection of spare parts and grit. I think this run will help them throughout the season.