What's Goin' On Here??

Okay. What’s this? Check out the leaders of each of the 6 MLB divisions this Sunday after about a week of play:

NL East – Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins – 5-1
NL Central – St. Louis Cardinals – 5-2
NL West – San Diego Padres - 5-2

AL East – Toronto Blue Jays – 5-2
AL Central – Detroit Tigers – 4-3
AL West – Seattle Mariners – 5-2

Gimme a break…the Braves?

I can understand the Marlins leading the NL East. They’ve got all those stud-ly guys, Uggla, Hermida, and how about Hanley Ramirez? Then there’re some nice pitchers too, such as the young Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez.

But the Braves don’t have that much, do they? I mean…..Chipper Jones is great when he plays and Brian McCann is a nice catcher, Yunil Escobar ain’t too shabby either, and oh yeah, Jeff Francoeur can drive them in. But Kelly Johnson and ol’ Garrett Anderson? Not exactly Murderers Row.

And yeah, they picked up Derek Lowe for big bucks, but then there’s Jari Jurrjens as the number two. Do I really have to learn how to spell Jurrjens? And Vasquez and Campillo….c’mon, this can’t be happening. Of course, they did just finish with the Nats.

The Mets and Phils, they’re both starting a little slow. Mr. Santana lost a tough one today. And Daniel Murphy, so impressive in so many ways, today we learn he needs a new pair of sunglasses. The Phils have to live with that pitching.

In the AL East, the lowly Blue Jays are knockin’ em dead. The mighty Yankees, upstart Rays and Red Sox Nation are all looking up at those fellas from Canada. Of course, after watching the Yanks today, they deserve whatever they get. Has a pitching staff ever been handled more stupidly?

Has an organization ever in the history of the major leagues been more infatuated with pitch counts? Joba was doing great. Woops! Let’s take him out ! His pitch count, his pitch count! Let’s get those second-tier relief guys in there. I mean, really. Bruney’s okay but if you’re going to get relievers on the cheap, you should forget about pitch counts. Do things really go better with Coke? I don’t think so.

The Red Sox are 2-4 and I don’t know what their story is. I do know Ortiz and Ellsbury and Pedroia really aren’t tearing it up yet. I hope it’s not Papi’s wrist, and, if not, you have to think all those guys will start hitting soon. And they did just finish with the Angels, not exactly a piece of cake.

I could analyze each and every division, of course, but that would be boring. This kind of thing seems to happen every year. The favorites take a hike. They’re not really paying attention, not as are the underdogs. Those teams come in with a built-in chip on their shoulders and are hard to beat.

But some of these teams are for real. Take the Mariners….please? No. really. They’ve got some terrific pitchers, some players who can make you pay, Chavez, Beltre, Griffey, and he hasn’t really gotten started yet.

Then there’re just some inexplicable things. Why did Tim Lincecum get bombed today? What did Peavy do yesterday that he missed in his first start? The same goes for the Yankees CC. Except in his case, we know the reason.. He shortened his stride and everything else just fell right into line, his fastball got faster, his control returned and all was right with the world.

Baseball is such a great game if only because it can turn on so many different variables. In a given week, or even as long as a month, a team can get some breaks and then just ride that momentum to achieving some remarkable feats. Anybody who watched Reed Johnson, now with the Cubs, rob Prince Fielder of a grand slam last night by perfectly timing his jump to snag Fielder’s drive from the fans side of the rightfield wall can attest to that.

Things can work the other way around too. The Indians had really high hopes for this season but starting out 0 and 5 surely didn’t do anything to brighten their outlook. But you can bet that opening up against that powerful Rangers lineup and then having to face all those Blue Jay arms was a big factor in their season-opening demise.

They avoided 0-6 yesterday and it was nice to see Travis Hafner hit one out after his troubles from last year. Equally nifty was Kerry Wood’s first save for the Tribe. Before you can say “Rocky Colavito”, the Indians will be back. Facing the perennially downtrodden Royals for a 3-game set next week should do a lot to bring them back to respectability.

Yes, you have to play the games. It’s great that the paper says you’re a better team, but you still have to go out there and prove it. Over the course of 162 games, eventually probability rears its ugly head. The Royals of the world come back to the pack and the cream eventually rises. Only sometimes it does not.

So, despite the wonders of brand new expensive stadiums and a very fancy MLB network, the attraction is still just the game. It’s really a good one, baseball is. You never really know what awaits your favorite team on the field that day.

For me, it was nice to see Boston’s Josh Beckett get banged around by the Angels after he threw at Abreu’s head and nice to see him take the loss. But it was just as good to see Big Papi finally get a 2-4 day and an RBI too.

You do get some insights though after that first week or two. A Mets fan can feel that Pelfrey and Maine and Livan Hernandez could all come through this season even if Oliver Perez might still be in and out at best.

Yanks fans, they can feel that CC and AJ are the real deal, that third baseman maybe not.

CC and JJ WooHoo!!

Wow! Bang! In comes K-Rod
Whoosh! In comes J.J. Putz, out goes Heilman.

Sitting here listening to Darryl Strawberry talking on the FAN with Francesa about his years with the ’86 World Champions New York Mets, and still basking in the knowledge that we’ll have some real relievers next year, what could be better?

Uh-oh, now he’s re-living his Yankees Days. Geez, even that’s OK now. Now that Omar and the Mets have done such a sterling job of operationalizing their priorities. The Yanks pay 61 mill for C.C and we get K-Rod for beans, relatively speaking, of course.

Then we get JJ Putz from Seattle, one of the premier relievers in the league for at least a few years now for Aaron Heilman and Endy Chavez. Some minor league players were also involved, but the crux of the deal is Putz for Chavez, Heilman and Joe Smith, who actually will wind up with the Indians. A lefthanded pitcher named Jason Vargas, who was hurt for all of last year, was also included in the deal.

The Mets also get a pretty fair right-handed middle-inning reliever named Sean Green, who may be better than anyone the Mets now have in that role. A utility outfielder named Jeremy Reed completes the 12-player mass juggle. The Mets are probably ten to 15 games better than they were last year, and that may be conservative if everyone stays healthy.

I don’t like some aspects of the huge trade, such as letting Joe Smith go. He was a tough pitcher in certain spots last year, and you had an overall good feeling about him. Sure, he may have messed up some, they all did, but not in the spots that Heilman did. Oh God, don’t make me re-live that all over again!

I understand they’ll be talking to Pedro again. While I don’t think they’ll work anything out with Mr. Martinez, I do relish the thought, just for fun rather than effectiveness necessarily.

And I hope they’ll get the crazy left-hander back too, Oliver Perez. If they can retain him for less than they can get for a free agent starter of the same quality, why not keep him? He’s at his best in big games, and more than ever, it looks as if the Mets may have some of those in 2009.

Just accomplishing this much would yield a starting rotation of Johan Santana, Oliver Perez, John Maine, Mike Pelfrey and Pedro Martinez. Another lefthander with possibilities named Jonathon Niese makes for a pretty fair rotation. Compare it to that of the World Champ Phillies.

Maine and Pelfrey should be better than last year. So should Pedro, for that matter. If Santana can hold his form, what a year it could be. I’m sure crazy Ollie would provide some unwanted adventure, and Pedro usually provides just five or six good innings at this stage of his career, but three of five starters would be pretty consistent, providing mostly routine quality starts.

So there’d be quite a few instances of a need for good relief pitching with that rotation. But now the Mets have it. If they can just get to the eighth inning, they now have the best finishing tandem in either league, JJ Putz in the eighth and Francisco Rodriguez in the ninth.

With a finishing tandem such as that, the Mets really don’t need to do more in the pitching area than to just keep Perez and Pedro. They’d keep some of that crazy chemistry too. The lineup they have is strong enough to score runs, and that’s just by keeping the other Reyes (Argenis) at 2nd base and the Murphy/Evans combo in left field.

Keeping Damien Easley would be fine, and Fernando Tatis was no slouch either last year. Otherwise, I’d be happy with Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Delgado, Church, Murphy or Evans and Schneider/Castro.

The Yanks are talking with a lot of guys. They need a lot of guys. And maybe they’ll watch Teixeira go to Boston. Oh man! How good does it get? Imagine the joy of watching Teixeira hit 30 and 100 and lead the Sawx to one more title. Meanwhile, we Mets fans got what we needed all year.

The Yankees are figuring, I guess, they can throw just anybody into the first base position. Giambi, Damon, whatever…and I suppose they’re not that crazy about Bobby Abreu, which is hard to believe really, given that he hits .300 every year.

If I were a Yankee fan, I’d be worried big-time. Sabathia has always been one of my favorite fantasy-league pitchers and he’s been great, but he tends to start the season slowly and that just won’t do in the big town. He’ll be vilified on the rags’ back pages at least a few times before the beginning of June. How will that affect an easy-going guy?

Does trading Mike Cameron for Melky Cabrera really accomplish that much? For all anyone knows, Melky could come back from his down season, and he was never bad in that centerfield spot. It was his lack of presence in the lineup that was frustrating. Cameron has more power but he strikes out……a lot.

Maybe they’ll have some bulletins during the football game tonight letting us know what other moves the Yanks may be making. God knows they still need some pitching. C.C. may be able to pitch with three days rest but not even the big guy can pitch every day.

The Yanks too are allegedly bidding against the Phils for Derek Lowe. That would be just fine for Mets fans, robbing the Phillies of still another weapon that would soon turn on our boys in blue. Go get ‘em, Cash….

Anything can happen in baseball, of course. As Yogi was supposed to have said one day, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over” but Mets fans are a lot further along than they were a couple of days ago. That’s for sure. The beginning of the beginning is looking very good indeed.