It's New! It's Improved! It's the Official Annual Off-Topic Baseball Thread!!

[Lcubed48]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

Don't blink or you will miss this - the M's are in first place!!!!!! At least for now.

AND, so are the Cardinals - at least for now!!!

[grunewar]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

Don't blink or you will miss this - the M's are in first place!!!!!! At least for now.

Originally Posted by Lcubed48

AND, so are the Cardinals - at least for now!!!

And so are the O's!

I recommend we end the season right now - your playoff teams:

American - Jays, Orioles, Mariners, and Royals

National - Marlins, Cards, Padres, and Dodgers

Anyone second?

[rockyroad]

Really don't blink this time - but the M's now have the best record in the AL!!!!

Griffey hits his first Safeco homer for the M's...Ichiro with a grand slam...Chavez has hit safely in all 9 games...M's are 7-2!! It's been a while since the M's had a winning record after the first couple weeks of the season. They are actually fun to watch again!

[ChuckElias]

Originally Posted by rockyroad

It's been a while since the M's had a winning record after the first couple weeks of the season. They are actually fun to watch again!

And it's been a while (about 15 years) since the Sox have gotten off to this bad of a start. Wake no-hits the A's for 7 innings and goes for the complete game yesterday. Nice way to finish up a horrendous road trip. The offense has been terrible, and Dice-K is already on the DL. When your arm is "fatigued" before Tax Day (let's hear it for the WBC!!), you're not going to have a good season.

And a 6-game suspension for Beckett? That's ludicrous. If the benches hadn't cleared, he wouldn't have gotten anything at all. The suspension is b/c of the Angels' reaction, nothing more; and that's stupid. It wasn't even all that close to the batter, who was already backing out of the box.

[rockyroad]

Originally Posted by ChuckElias

And it's been a while (about 15 years) since the Sox have gotten off to this bad of a start. Wake no-hits the A's for 7 innings and goes for the complete game yesterday. Nice way to finish up a horrendous road trip. The offense has been terrible, and Dice-K is already on the DL. When your arm is "fatigued" before Tax Day (let's hear it for the WBC!!), you're not going to have a good season.

And a 6-game suspension for Beckett? That's ludicrous. If the benches hadn't cleared, he wouldn't have gotten anything at all. The suspension is b/c of the Angels' reaction, nothing more; and that's stupid. It wasn't even all that close to the batter, who was already backing out of the box.

Yeah, but...the plate umpire had called time, and Beckett threw anyway. And threw awfully close to the batter's head - especially considering that the batter was already backing up. Looked pretty bad from where I was sitting - keeping in mind that I really don't like Boston that much, of course.

[Nevadaref]

Already this season TWO players have hit for the cycle!
Of course, there have also been a couple of near no-hitters.

Fun start to the season.

[mick]

The nine-time All-Star hit a full-count pitch an estimated 385 feet for his first hit and homer of the season for the New York Mets after being cut by the Detroit Tigers the last week of spring training.

[Nevadaref]

Originally Posted by mick

The nine-time All-Star hit a full-count pitch an estimated 385 feet for his first hit and homer of the season for the New York Mets after being cut by the Detroit Tigers the last week of spring training.

Look for him to announce his retirement in the next week.

[Nevadaref]

Another cycle already.

"Jason Kubel completed the ninth cycle in Twins' history with a go-ahead grand slam (fifth of career) to cap off a seven-run eighth inning for Minnesota. Kubel had five RBIs to lift the Twins to their fifth win."

[mbyron]

[ChuckElias]

For those of you who don't understand mbyron's most recent post, Cleveland Indians vs. New York Yankees - Recap - April 18, 2009 - ESPN

Tribe scores 14 in the top of the second inning against the Yankees, winning the game 22-4. No team has EVER scored 14 runs in the 2nd inning of a game, and it happened in just the third game ever played in the new Yankees stadium.

Wang's ERA is now somewhere around 34.50. ESPN's Tim Kurkjian was on SportsCenter this morning with some other great stats about the game. The 14 runs in the 2nd is more than the Braves have scored in their last five games combined, I think.

One of the NYC papers had this on the back page:

Ballpark: $1.5 billion
Payroll: $200 million
Team: Worthless.

Somewhere right now, JR and Dan and rolling in their graves.

[BillyMac]

ChuckElias: Let's not make a mistake and gloat too much about what happened in the Bronx yesterday. The Bronx team is still a half a game ahead of The Olde Towne Team in the standings, and neither team is above .500, yet. And remember, what goes around, comes around.

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by ChuckElias

Wang's ERA is now somewhere around 34.50.

I read that he will have to pitch over 48 scoreless innings (7 or 8 shutout starts) to bring his ERA down to his career average.

According to the Yankees, "he's not hurt."