Well June is here once again so fire up your grills, hit the beach and start enjoying that warm weather. OK, temperatures are slowly rising at least in the Midwest so one of these days summer weather will show up, right? Regardless of the weather, June is the month in MLB when teams begin to separate themselves from the pack and you find out who the good teams are from the pretenders. Since today is the first day of June and the Pens lost last night, I can't think of a better time, than right now, to talk some baseball.
The Rays - The sun might not be shining bright in the northern part of the country, but the Rays are shining in Tampa, Florida. The Rays currently are 34-22, own the best record in the American League and are one game ahead of the Red Sox in the AL East. While I still think the Red Sox will end up winning this division, don't expect the Rays to fall much behind. Boston are the champs and still have enough talent and pitching to take over the division and be the favorite heading into October. But expect the Rays to be around all summer and compete for a wild card berth in the AL. Everybody knew about Tampa Bay's young hitting prospects coming into the season with BJ Upton, Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria, but the Rays are winning because of their pitching and defense. They are currently fifth in the AL in ERA with a 3.67 mark and have tossed seven shutouts in two months. The Rays also have the league's top fielding percentage (.989) and have the fewest errors with 23 in 56 games. Baseball is a simple game sometimes, you are going to win plenty of games if you are pitching and playing stellar defense. Don't expect this team to fade out of contention anytime soon.
Detroit Tigers - I'm burying this team for the 2008 season. Look, I live in the Detroit TV/media market so I get to watch the Tigers more than any other team. And yes, they are just 7.0 games out of first in the AL Central, yes there's plenty of time left in the season and yes they have an unbelievable lineup on paper, but hold on a second. This team has too many problems to dig themselves out of a 23-32 hole. Take for instance their AL-worst team ERA. Their bullpen is a mess with no one to go to when they are in a close game. And the stacked lineup will put up 10 runs one game and then get shutout the next two. The lineup people were talking about putting up 1,000 runs during spring training has surprisingly been shutout nine times. NINE times in two months! Forget about it. The Tigers hitters have been way too inconsistent to expect to compete.
NL East - I see this division coming down to the wire again this season, but the Marlins won't be there come September. The Mets will get it going over the next couple of months and the Braves are looking like the same well-constructed team that won 15 straight division titles. I think it will come down to the Mets and Braves with the Phillies not far off, but the Marlins will fade soon. Florida has been knocking the ball out of the yard this year, ranking second in the NL in homers, but their average is middle of the road and they aren't getting great pitching with a 4.38 ERA. The pitching will catch up to the Fish and they will fall behind the more experienced and talented Mets and Braves. I'll take the Mets to win the division with a real good chance that the wild card will come from this division in either the Braves or Phillies.
Pirates are 26-29. Will they finish with a winning season? Nope, absolutely not. Somehow this team is 26-29. I don't understand that, but their division is too talented for the Pirates to get past any of them. The Pirates have an ERA of 5.00 and the starting pitching has been atrocious with Phil Dumatrait suddenly becoming their most consistent pitcher. The Bucs two young starters that were supposed to carry them this year have been the worst two on the team...Ian Snell has been awful, same with Tom Gorzelanny plus he's hurt thanks to Jim Tracy. They are toward the bottom of the National League in hitting, second-worst in ERA and are dead last in fielding. The Reds, Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals and Astros all have more talent than the Pirates so they will be losing their 16th consecutive season.
Teams to watch for over the next couple of months to start making a run: Indians, Brewers, Rangers and Blue Jays.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
June 1st Baseball Talk
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No mention of the first night of the baseball season when I was talking to you online and I believe you said something along the lines of "I'm not sure about Chipper this year. He's getting up there and is going to fall off soon"? Haha, just had to throw that ribbing in there, not that anybody, even the most bias Braves fan in the world would've predicted him hitting .418 on June 10th.
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