Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners is having an outstanding spring so far. He has been hitting like a madman! He’s in fact got a 25-game hitting streak right now, which ties his own personal best from two years ago. And he can break that record tonight against the Baltimore Orioles. It’s going to be a lot of fun for the fans of this otherwise underperforming team to have something to cheer for. Their acquisition of Ken Griffey Jr. is also one of the best moves that they’ve made, though he’s not playing in any particularly impressive way. He’s a sentimental pick for a lot of people. It’s going to be a long year for the Mariners it seems, but they have something fun to watch for.
June 2nd, 2009
Manny Ramirez, for those who don’t know yet, got into big trouble last week from the MLB. It’s not one of those things that we’ve been hearing over the last few years. During the last few years, it’s been about big hitters who bulked up using steroids because “it was ok at the time”. But now the rules are clear and players are equally penalized whenever they break the rules. Ramirez was found with a banned substance in his blood this year and will have to miss 50 games, leaving him out of the lineup until early July. Now he’s going around, apologizing to the Administration of the Dodgers, the managers and will probably start talking with the other players on the team in the next few days. He’s clearly embarassed and disappointed. Especially if the situation is as he said, that the doctor gave him something and he didn’t realize it was against the rules, it’s easy to imagine that he’s disappointed in himself. These players will have to start remembering to watch what’s being put into their bodies!
May 11th, 2009
Can Philly win it all again? This team has had trouble most years except for last season and they are looking to push forward and win it again. They aren’t projected to be the best team in the league, but that hasn’t happened in a long time either. Will they win it out? They will start this weekend to defend their title. It’s been a busy offseason in the MLB with quite a few different trades that have happened. It’s going to be a big season now and we hope that the team will be able to make a good showing. That NL East is a fun division that can push a lot of different ways. The Mets, Phillies and a couple of other teams will give the division a very competitive feel this year and that’s always fun to watch.
April 3rd, 2009
When you have the AL Central in front of you, you have to wonder what these teams are going to do. The Minnesota Twins are probably the best team in the division right now. They only missed the playoffs by one game and you have to think that they are going to jump up a bit now. The team has beefed up parts of their lineup and several pitchers that are in now. The White Sox are still a talented team, but they have been a little hard to understand in the last couple of years. They still have the core of their pitching from the World Series, but there are a lot of other players that are kind of hard to guess at because they are simply inconsistent. Cleveland and Detroit are even harder to figure, because they are new teams that we don’t know much about right now. The Royals have also gotten better but they’re not there yet. They might get out of the basement, but it will be a little while before we know if they’ve really improved.
March 6th, 2009
Jim Bowden, the general manager of the Washington Nationals, has resigned his job. This comes on the heels of several problems that he has had in the last couple of years. Last year, his team had more than 100 losses, in the inaugural season in the new stadium. This year, though the season hasn’t yet begun, they have apparently had enough time to make some mistakes and start some scandals. There was some skimming of signing bonuses for Latin American players and a high profile botched vetting process for one of those players, who turned out to be much younger than he himself claimed. So Bowden, being in charge of many of these things, had to quit and the Nats can perhaps move on.
March 2nd, 2009
Exhibition games started this week in Florida and Arizona and it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun! For those who don’t really know, in the exhibition games, especially the early ones, you can see a lot of different players trying out various different things to convince the managers to put them on the roster for the season. Either that or they will get the attention of other managers on the way. This week, we will be seeing a lot of different players that we’ve never heard of, and some of them will be good and some of them will be available for future playing, in case of an injury to a regular player. We’re certainly looking forward to the whole spring training time!
February 27th, 2009
CNN-SI has made their preseason predictions. They have decided that the Cubs are going to win the pennant this year. Apparently they have the best batting in the National League, certainly in the NL Central. There will be some interesting teams coming up this year, but the Cubs have improved in many ways this season. Their pitching is one of the best in the league as well, even though it doesn’t have quite as many big time players as a major pitching staff might have. No one wants to go so far as to say the Cubs will win the Series, but this is a good start towards that, I suppose.
February 23rd, 2009
Jeff Francis, who had a rough season last year, has decided to have exploratory surgery on his shoulder to see what the problem is. He’s been pitching with pain in his shoulder since about the beginning of last year and MRIs haven’t really clarified the issue at all. As a result, he’s going to have to take a look at the options available to him for the fixing and rehab of his shoulder. He was a major part of the Rockies’ World Series in 2007, but now he’s going to have to be fixed up to come back for 2010. No one is really thinking that he might make it this year, and it’s too bad that he didn’t get to this point until now, in the spring, but whatever is healthiest for him.
February 20th, 2009
CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets are not on the Milwaukee Brewers this year. But they’re trying to find a way to replace these two. Two of the best pitchers around right now. Sabathia and Sheets were the center of their lineup last season and now there’s going to be trouble for the Brewers to find someone else. They have several very able pitchers. People that would improve most teams, or give other teams a little depth. But when that’s the main part of your starters and not people who would probably come from the bulpen, then you know you’re in trouble. This is why the Cubs are being portrayed as a possible winner in the division this season, because the Brewers were the only team that even came close and they don’t have a lot of their dominance left now.
February 16th, 2009
Bud Selig took it to A-Rod this week, calling his actions shameful and saying that he will have to live with the bad consequences of these actions. As we mentioned in the previous post, A-Rod was revealed to have used performance enhancing drugs during the 2001-3 seasons. The drug tests were intended to be anonymous and not publicly released in any event. Now Selig can’t punish him for those actions. This wasn’t against the rules at the time. And the players union has more to do with this issue than he does. The bigger issue for him is that one of the player’s union reps apparently tipped off A-Rod to a later drug test, so that he could get himself clean beforehand.
February 13th, 2009
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