This Week In Baseball

[MikeJordan23 0]

Yankees win again, and move to within 3.5 games of the Orioles. But the Orioles are for real, so might as well forget it! Those damn aging Yankees have won 16 out of the last 18 games. We need a spark!

Word. People keep saying the Yankees this, Yankees that. I hate the Yankees, but if they don't lead the division by 5 at the end of June, I'd be shocked.

[Guest Mosaicv2]

Pedro absolutely dominate tonite against the Marlins; 10 K and only 3 hits and no-walks. FUCKIN' SWEET!

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Yankees win again, and move to within 3.5 games of the Orioles. But the Orioles are for real, so might as well forget it! Those damn aging Yankees have won 16 out of the last 18 games. We need a spark!

Word. People keep saying the Yankees this, Yankees that. I hate the Yankees, but if they don't lead the division by 5 at the end of June, I'd be shocked.

I would. The Yankees are 9-14 against their own division, 3-0 against the Central (swept the Tigers), and 12-6 against the West. That has the stench of a team that performs well against weak competition. The Orioles meanwhile are 16-6 against the East. And of course the Orioles are 5-1 against the Yankees. No one is saying the Orioles will beat the Yankees for sure. But they are a team to be taken seriously.

[Guest Mosaicv2]

uh-oh... Mark Prior's mri revealed a fractured bone in his elbow.

[MikeJordan23 0]

Yankees win again, and move to within 3.5 games of the Orioles. But the Orioles are for real, so might as well forget it! Those damn aging Yankees have won 16 out of the last 18 games. We need a spark!

Word. People keep saying the Yankees this, Yankees that. I hate the Yankees, but if they don't lead the division by 5 at the end of June, I'd be shocked.

I would. The Yankees are 9-14 against their own division, 3-0 against the Central (swept the Tigers), and 12-6 against the West. That has the stench of a team that performs well against weak competition. The Orioles meanwhile are 16-6 against the East. And of course the Orioles are 5-1 against the Yankees. No one is saying the Orioles will beat the Yankees for sure. But they are a team to be taken seriously.

I'm not taking into consideration games from April when the Yankees were losing to everybody. Right now, they have some really light teams on their schedule coming up (Brewers 4, Royals 3, Pirates 3), with the way their offense is hitting, I would not doubt they could win 9 of the next 14, easily. I hope I'm wrong, but I've seen it too many times to be optimistic about the Orioles maintaining this flimsy 3 1/2 (4 in the loss) game lead.

[Brett Favre 0]

Sorry Cub fans.

 

The Yankees schedule is getting better each week. After this series, they go up against KC, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Minnesota, Chicago (NL) and the Mets. Out of those, St. Lous is really the only team i'd be worried about.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

You're seriously not worried about Minnesota?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

By the way, here is a quick trivia question. What team has the most wins this month?

[mike546 0]

I'm guessing its not the Yanks, so, the Pads?

[Brett Favre 0]

You're seriously not worried about Minnesota?

Maybe a bit since we're playing at Minny.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I'm guessing its not the Yanks, so, the Pads?

Correct.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Just for the heck of it, the Yankees are 15-13 on artificial turf over the last two seasons. They were 18-5 in 2003 on turf however, sweeping the Twins and getting to play the Devil Rays in Tampa Bay ten times.

[mike546 0]

You're seriously not worried about Minnesota?

Depends on whos pitching.

 

Radke, Silva, Loshe and co. have never given us much trouble. If Browns pitching, we'll have issues on the turf with the D. I'm definitley worried.

[Cuban Linx 0]

Alfonso Soriano moves to 2nd in the league with his 13th and 14th Home Runs of the season, Chris Young continues to build his Rookie of the Year chances by giving up 1 run over 8 innings, and Texas win their 7th in a row, this time over a good team in the Chicago White Sox.

 

Which should have given them the solo Division lead, but it looks like the Royals' incompetence has shined through again, giving up 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th to send that game to extra innings, which i'm sure the Angels will win in short order.

[iggymcfly 0]

Yankees win again, and move to within 3.5 games of the Orioles. But the Orioles are for real, so might as well forget it! Those damn aging Yankees have won 16 out of the last 18 games. We need a spark!

Well, obviously if the Yankees keep winning 90% of their games, they'll take the division. However, as Al pointed out, a lot of their recent streak had to do with the schedule. (6 games each against Seattle and Oakland.) In addition, their aging pitching staff is much more likely to break down over the grind of the season than Baltimore's is.

 

I'm not saying that the Yankees are incapable of winning the AL East, or that the Orioles have it locked up. I'm just saying that Baltimore looks like the best team in the division right now, and are on pace to get to 100 wins without much trouble. Until they do something to suggest otherwise, I think they should be given some respect as the frontrunners in the division.

[Jericholic82 0]

and the os schedule has been much better? hell most of the AL is filled with underachievers and bad teams. not to say that Baltimore isn't good, they obviously are.

 

anyhow we can't start prediciting crap in May. I won't do it. I will just say I was happy to see the Yanks come back and beat the Sox.

[iggymcfly 0]

Well, the Orioles didn't lose 8 out of 10 when they were playing the good teams in the division and then dismiss it is as "just April". I'm just saying that playing the worst teams in the AL instead of the best might have more to do with the Yankees turnaround then this magical May motivation thing.

[Jericholic82 0]

Well, the Orioles didn't lose 8 out of 10 when they were playing the good teams in the division and then dismiss it is as "just April". I'm just saying that playing the worst teams in the AL instead of the best might have more to do with the Yankees turnaround then this magical May motivation thing.

you make sense igg, I can't deny that playing bad teams can be helpful (and definately got them back on track), however remember that you have to beat the bad teams if you have any plans of beating a good team.

 

but as I said, I am not making bold predictions or excuses cuz it is plain dumb.

 

Don't sweat it Iggy, I understand you are excited, and you should be. I am impressed with the o's thus far. Just know that I am rooting for my Yanks to overtake your O's, but as a fellow fan I know you get that.

 

See, we don't always have to hate on each other in here.

[Guest TheDon]

So the Yankees should be worried about their pitching staff but Baltimore who has Bruce Chen and Sidney Ponson shouldn't be worried about theirs?????

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

So the Yankees should be worried about their pitching staff but Baltimore who has Bruce Chen and Sidney Ponson shouldn't be worried about theirs?????

I'm sure there's some uneasiness, but when you pay over %50 Million for a rotation, you tend to worry a little more. Besides, Bruce Chen is really better than people think. He's always had good peripherals, but trouble with the longball. The Orioles do have these interesting figures called pitching prospects.

 

What's forgotten is that the Orioles have real defenders, who catch balls hit in their direction. The Yankees seem to struggle with that.

[Brett Favre 0]

Yankees win again, and move to within 3.5 games of the Orioles. But the Orioles are for real, so might as well forget it! Those damn aging Yankees have won 16 out of the last 18 games. We need a spark!

Well, obviously if the Yankees keep winning 90% of their games, they'll take the division. However, as Al pointed out, a lot of their recent streak had to do with the schedule. (6 games each against Seattle and Oakland.) In addition, their aging pitching staff is much more likely to break down over the grind of the season than Baltimore's is.

 

I'm not saying that the Yankees are incapable of winning the AL East, or that the Orioles have it locked up. I'm just saying that Baltimore looks like the best team in the division right now, and are on pace to get to 100 wins without much trouble. Until they do something to suggest otherwise, I think they should be given some respect as the frontrunners in the division.

With the way things are going, we're taking the division.

 

A month ago you said we had absolutely no chance, stated that only the Blue Jays and Sox pose a threat to the Orioles, and now your toned has changed to maybe the Yankees will win the division? Can't wait to see what you say on June 28. You keep asking me to respect the Orioles, but the way you just dissed the Yankees a month ago, I don't see why I should.

 

As far as our pitching staff breaking down, Randy seems to be re-gaining velocity, Mussina is better than he was a month ago, Pavano is 29, Brown is pitching better than he was a month ago, Wang is like 24, and Wright is 28. So uh, I don't see it happening.

[MikeJordan23 0]

Cubs trade Latroy Hawkins to the Giants for Jerome Williams and minor league pitcher David Aardsma.

[Guest OSIcon]

A month ago you said we had absolutely no chance, stated that only the Blue Jays and Sox pose a threat to the Orioles, and now your toned has changed to maybe the Yankees will win the division? Can't wait to see what you say on June 28. You keep asking me to respect the Orioles, but the way you just dissed the Yankees a month ago, I don't see why I should.

 

Not to put words into Iggy's mouth, but I've taken his posts in the past to mean that as an Orioles fan, he wasn't worried about the Yankees at the end of April because they were well under .500 and in 4th or 5th place. He wasn't saying they they will never be able to come back, but at that time, he didn't have any reason to be worried about a 4th place team that was 8 games under .500. That really isn't unreasonable as if things were flipped, I amsure most Yankees fans wouldn't have been worried about the O's.

 

It was (and still is) just the usual annoying case of double standards applying to the Yankees. If the O's were 8 games back, you can bet they would have been written off and nobody would have felt that was an unfair assumption. But since it was the Yankees that were 8 games back, everyone was expected to still talk about them as if it was certain they would get back to first place. Even now, the Yankees are on a great hot streak but they still aren't in first place and there is no evidence that they will be able to keep this up all season. Yet people still act like it is a given that they will overtake the O's soon. They may, they might not. It just gets annoying when people act like it is going to happen for sure just because "they're the Yankees".

[Brett Favre 0]

But don't you think the Yankees have earned that double standard? It's like if the Devil Rays were up 8 games, do you honestly believe they would hold up? The Yankees have won 7 straight division titles; I think they deserve that double standard. Same thing goes for the Braves when they were down last year too.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

The Yankees have no defense. They won't hold up.

[Brett Favre 0]

They weren't exactly gold glovers (well Jeter was) last year either, and it's practically the same team.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

If there is a god, he hates the Cubs.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Salami for Renteria. 9-0 Sox.

[DerangedHermit 0]

Salami for Renteria. 9-0 Sox.

Trots makes it 12-0. Good god.

[Cartman 0]