5/28: Epic Duels, Epic Walkoffs With A Side Of West-Coast Bias

Well, it's been an interesting night baseball-wise. The Brewers-Mets game has been an epic pitchers duel to the nth degree as Yovani Gallardo and Johan Santana have put zeros across the score-board all night long.

As I write this, there is one gone in the bottom of the ninth and the Mets are in the process of making a pitching change. Will this be the second straight day the Crew win it in their last at-bat? That is a question that is yet to be revealed. With Braun and McGehee the next two batters up, the Brewers have a shot.

Braun eeks out an infield hit after Reyes makes a diving stop...good for the momentum but there's still work to do. McGehee jumped the gun and hit a harmless pop-up. Tonight in particular it seems like the Crew hitters have an all or nothing approach (i.e. everyone seems to be swinging for the fences).

And just like that IT WORKED. Corey Hart took one DEEP!!!!!!!!!. Had to chill for a few moments and let the walk-off homer sink in. Even though the Brewers still have work to do standings wise (20-28)....it has been nice to get out of the abyss of a 9-game losing and to start winning some games in the 9th inning instead of losing them.

As epic and awesome as tonight's game was, there is still more baseball to get into. We might be getting towards the late games but these games do have heavy fantasy implications for myself. As I write this, my team is trailing by 4 points for the week (191.5-187.5) and two of my starting pitchers are pitching right now (Cain and Richard) and the team i'm up against has Edwin Jackson and Scott Kazmir getting starts currently.

In other words, lots of hectic split-screen back and forth engagement between split-screens on the mlb.tv and the Angels game on Fox Sports West.

Right now, my main focus is on the Padres-Zombie Expos game as Clayton Richard has put up 3 2/3 scoreless right now. If Clayton Richard keeps this up, i'll have to ask myself why it took me so long for me to replace John Lackey with Clayton Richard.

I'd definitely have to say that I find the Padres to be one of the more interesting teams in baseball this year. Pretty much everyone (myself included) thought the Padres had little or zero chance to contend this year. But the way that team is pitching, this is a definitely a team that is not going away anytime soon (even though Willingham just hit a 3-run shot off of Richard).

The Zombie Expos on the other hand seem to be playing the hang around .500 until they can call up Strasburg without accruing arbitration time in 2010 (this rule manipulation is up there amongst things that are wrong with pro baseball). While this team is not going to be as bad as they have been the last few years (100-plus losses)......I definitely wouldn't give the Zombie Expos a higher than 20% percent chance to stick around (tougher division, less overall talent, no way that Livian Hernandez keeps that era low, etc.).

Either way, if I end up winning this league Strasburg will be indirectly involved to some extent (no he's not on my team). To back track, third base had been a black hole for my in the first month of the season as I decided to pick Brandon Wood's upside over Casey McGehee (big mistake). I had stuck with Wood (not good) gave Casey Blake a chance to start (didn't work out) but at this moment, a third basemen fell out of the sky the same way a spinal surgeon fell out of the sky for Benjamin Linus when Oceanic 815 crashed on to the island. I look one day and Casey McGehee was on the waiver wire. I picked him up and out of curiosity looked to see who the NL Leader In RBI was replaced with (none other than Steven Strasburg).

Bounced to the D-Backs-Giants game to see if the Giants can put up some runs on Edwin Jackson. The Giants broadcast team just put up a pop-up of highest slugging average since 2009. Not suprisingly, Kung Fu Panda took the 1-spot. The #2 spot, Andres Torres.

While it may be a small sample size (305 At-Bats) and he didn't exactly set the world on fire prior to coming to The City, it does seem odd that it took Torres a year to get regular playing time considering how much this team has struggled to score runs in recent memory. Playing for the Giants (and thus half his games at Pac-Bell and he's put up a nice 126 OPS+, his profile may be low but that's actually fairly impressive. (Giants went up 2-0 BTW).

Back to the Padres-Zombies game which has the Zombie Expos up 3-1 (my team is up by .5 pts currently).........it looks like lots of leads changes and ties for my fantasy team tonight. Since Richard wasn't back on the mound yet, back to the Giants game and Matt Cain cruising along into the 4th inning.

Cain gets through another scoreless half-inning, my lead jumps to 4 points (helped along by Scott Kazmir giving up 4 runs). Off to the top of the 5th inning, a shot of the San Diego skyline and Richard racking up his second K. Richard shows a nice bounce-back from giving up the homer as he goes through a very quick 1-2-3 5th inning.

Back to the Giants-D-Backs game. I show up just in time to see Bengie Molina strike out. With mega-prospect call-up season right around the corner, Molina may not have many more chances to look clueless at the plate. Molina's (probable) replacement Buster Posey could be coming over from Fresno any day.

While this article indicates that Posey could be brought in to play 1st instead of going behind the plate, it is inevitable that Posey will take his reigns as Giants catcher of the future at some point. With the Giants still having hope for contending (only 3 1/2 out) and their offense struggling as always, there just seems to be more-upside to upgrading (i.e. starting Posey) at Catcher than at First.

Aubrey Huff has had a reasonable bounce-back season so far and it being questionable that Bengie Molina is an asset offensively (yes he can be counted on to hit .270-.290 with 15-20 homers but the last time he even had a 100 OPS+ was in 2006 with the Blue Jays). Point being, the numbers show that Molina is a slightly below league average hitter, he's 35 this year (his hitting is bound to regress at some point) and I think Posey is one of those prospects who steps in and gives his team a boost (probably should have broken camp with the Giants but hey, he "needed" those two months to develop his game.

Well I finished that rant in time to see Cain put up scoreless inning number 5 (as my team has pushed the lead up to 10). Kung Fu Panda misses an opp to blow the game open as he strikes out with the bases are loaded. The Giants are still in good shape though (up 3-0) and my team's lead has expanded to 16 1/2 points.

Well, that's whats going on right now....been a pretty good night.....till next time

Nerve-Racking Save Situations plus my thoughts on Jose Lima and Nyjer Morgan's inside the park incident

Just another sunny-Sunday afternoon. Got the Brewers-Twins game going on the MLB.tv feed. Got the end of the Red Sox-Phillies game playing on the TV.

Yesterday's game was interesting to say the least. Coming back from 4 down to take a lead only to blow the lead and lose in the 12th. Thus far today, the Brewers pitching (despite being in shambles) has pitched reasonably well so far as they are up 4-2 in the 6th inning. This also happens to be the second game where a Brewer has made their big league debut this weekend as Zach Braddock is in the middle of his first appearance as we speak.

Today is a sad day in the world of baseball as Jose Lima died at the age of 37. This was a bit shocking to say the least (anyone that uses a name such as Lima Time for his pitching appearances has to be interesting). His Major League career might have been over but he wasn't that old. Lima had an interesting career to say the least. He had a couple really good seasons in '98 at '99 and at age 26 it looked like he was going to be amongst the elite pitchers for the foreseeable future.

Of course things didn't work out that way. He did have his moments after that (pitching a playoff shutout for the Dodgers in the 2004 NLDS) but he was never able to recapture what he had for the end of the 90s. The last I remembered seeing of him was about a month ago. I was watching a Dodgers-Pirates game, it was about the 8th inning and they cut to the crowd where Lima was signing some autographs for some fans....I didn't think too much about this when I was watching that game but it seems surreal now that the next time I would see or hear anything about Lima would be to hear of his death.

So, yesterday I was watching MLB Network and they were about to go to commercial and they were teasing for a highlight for the Nationals game and something about an inside-the-park home run that happened in an unusual fashion. Since I wasn't feeling like TV after the Brewers loss yesterday, I didn't think much about it and went on with my day.

Well, I just saw the YouTube video for it and all I gotta say is wow. So I know its gotta be disappointing falling short on making a catch that would have robbed the hitter of a likely double. Being distracted enough to throw your hat down and completely lose it to the point that another outfielder has to throw the ball in a desperate attempt to prevent an inside the parker--that has got to be about the dumbest i've seen on a big league field in a long time (if not ever)--i'm guessing it will be hard for him to live this incident and he'll be likely to be remembered for the 20 seconds of bad judgment more than whatever he may accomplish on the field....it might not be fair but thats just the harsh reality of things.

Felling a bit tense the Brewers are up 4-2 right now but down to those elusive last 3 outs. Today's closers role is going to John Axford (after a very quick inning by Hoffman). Hudson just led off with a double--not liking how this is starting......strikes out Morneau (not bad at all)....struck out Cuddyer swinging (up and in).....Kubel RBI Single (not hit that hard outfield playing deep 4-3).......base hit runners at 1st and 3rd, Thome coming up...based loaded Plouffe coming out......strikes out Plouffe to end the game and lead the bases loaded...........for once a blown save is averted...........wow that was a bit nerve-racking......been inside my apartment a bit much this weekend, time to hit the gym.....till next time

5/22: Ranting on the Brewers and Roy Oswalt Wanting to get out of Houston

Well, after Thursday's win over the Pirates, there was (faint) hope that the Brewers could turn things around and go on a winning streak (that's when a team wins more than one game in a row.....or so i'm told).

Then, last night happened. Dave Bush lasting a 1/3 of an inning (but long enough for an umpire to try to fight him). Carlos Gomez over-celebrated a home run (while the Crew was down 12). In all seriousness, maybe this is the type of swagger the Brewers need to come back to (i.e. Choreographed Home Run Celebrations, Untucking, etc.)......the Brewers toned down on that stuff this year and also toned down their place in the standings at the same time.

Also, gotta say, i'm slowly but surely coming around on Carlos Gomez. I didn't think much of him when he got traded for J.J Hardy......i thought of him as another speedy light-hitter who was going to be a liability on offense. However, he's shown improved power (still not being mistaken for Braun/Fielder) he's hit for decent contact (but could improve on selecting which pitches to swing at) and the guy is an absolute vacumn in center field.

As for today, things ain't lookin much better. At least today's starter made it out of the first and has "held" the Twins to 4 runs in 2 2/3.

In the fake baseball world, John Lackey's bad start finally moved me to the point where I had seen enough and I sent him away to this magical place called the waiver wire (all this place had to do is give me Clayton Richard). Despite this bad start, my team is still hanging on to a 206-180 lead.

Well the Brewers might be a dysfunctional NL Central team but......but their team of strong hitters, bad pitching, and bad managing is joined in this dysfunction (and in the bottom of the standings) with the soon-to-be conducting a fire sale Houston Astros.

The writing for this is basically on the wall. Roy Oswalt has formally requested a trade. This is beyond bad for the Astros for a few reasons.

Oswalt is the face of this franchise:

Maybe the last few years haven't been the peak of his career. Maybe he hasn't finished in the top-10 in Cy Young voting since 2006. Maybe he's had lingering injury troubles as he gets to the wrong side of 30. But when you think of the Houston Astros, Roy Oswalt is one of the if not THE first name that you associate with that team. He has been deeply entrenched in that teams rotation since 2001. While star players switching teams isn't exactly a new phenomenon, he is on the short list of players where it would be totally weird to see him pitching in a different uniform.

He's one of the few bright spots on a pretty dull team:

The reality is this, if he were to be theoretically traded today, this team goes from one of the worst in baseball to a chance to be one of the worst teams in history. As it stands, the Astros are 15-27 (which is sadly better than their pythagoreon record of 13-29......Brad Mills may or may not be a good manager but we'll never know since this team is going to tarnish his W-L to the point where this is likely his only chance to manage...but that's another rant for another day).

Point being: 2010 Astros are pretty bad and they would be a lot worse if not for Roy Oswalt. Yes, I am completely aware that Roy Oswalt is 2-6 this season. However, the rest of his numbers indicate that this is a vintage peak (or better) season for Oswalt.

His ERA+ is 160 (Tied for 8th in the NL and the second best total for his career), His WHIP is at 1.066 (good for 9th in the NL and just shy of his personal best 1.059), he's only given up 7.2 Hits/9 (shy of the top-10 but would be a career high), Tied for 7th in innings, tied for 5th in strikeouts tied for 7th in SO/BB ratio at 3.75 (his best since 2006).

Point being, this isn't your typical 2-6 pitcher..if you remove this from an already bad team this becomes an even more colossal train-wreck....when (not if) he gets traded Brett Myers become their #1--Myers isn't a bad pitcher but he hasn't exactly been mistaken for an ace..with a back of the rotation of Wandy Rodriguez (acutally not that bad) Felipe Paulion/Bud Norris/#5 Pitcher TBD combined with a starting line-up led by a struggling Lance Berkman (95 OPS+), their second best hitter being Michael Bourn (seriously, you couldn't even make this up) and 4 starters with OPS+ below 52 ("led" by Tommy Manzella at 35+, this team has 110, maybe 115 losses written all over them, depending on when they trade Oswalt.

To put into context the pitcher that is requesting to have no piece of this team (according to his B-R page, the 3 most similar pitchers to him are Roy Halladay, Johan Santana & CC Sabathia). It's too early to tell where he's going to get traded but wherever he does he's probably going to be the difference between that team going to the post-season and not going to the post-season. I'd be surprised if he DIDN'T have a CC Sabathia type-effect on his future team.

The Ramble 5/20: It's Been Awhile, Its been a bit too long

Been away for way too long (been a busy couple of weeks).....lots have happened since the Gerut cycle.

-The Brewers lost a lot of ball-games. They lost 9 in a row......the lost by blowouts (Braves series)....they lost due to a faulty bullpen (Phillies series)....they lost when Ken Macha tried to get 130 pitches out of Chris Narveson.......they lost due to further bullpen failure (Todd Coffey having a bad 7th inning......we all have a bad game now and then).....they lost because Ken Macha brought in Hoffman to close a game (totally indefensible........you know it's bad when you see that your team is up 4-2 after 8 1/2 and you see who's pitching in the 9th and you think to yourself........the Brewers ain't winning this game..........they finally won when Ken Macha finally figured out that bringing Hoffman in to pitch the 9th isn't getting it done (about a month late).

-With the closer situation....my vote for who to blame for this mess goes to Ken Macha. While Trevor Hoffman might be the one losing the games and struggling horribly......Macha was the one that kept putting him into these situations to lose until the Crew dropped 10 games below .500. If you read between the lines, its pretty clear where I place the blame for this mess. It's so bad that he's starting to make Eric Gagne look good.....nuff said.

-It's really hard to find a silver lining through all of this failure. The closest I can come up with is this stretch only cost the Brewers a couple games in the standings as St. Louis struggled pretty bad during that stretch and the Reds have lost the last couple of games (in pretty brutal fashion nonetheless). While that 16-25 record is pretty ugly, they are still only 7 1/2 games out............if they turn things around and get hot for a month (with their offense it's not beyond reality) this team could bounce back yet.............it's a fat chance but with 121 games left it's too depressing to think about looking ahead to 2011 (even though that is a reasonable thing to think)

-Whew....lengthy rant.....the fantasy teams....they keep moving along. Chillin at 4-2 in the CBS League.....lost pretty bad last week.....found some time to pick up Ian Desmond and Casey McGehee (one of the few Brewers to actually show up the last week and a half).....i'm in pretty good shape this week (up by about 40 points).........(however the team i'm playing has Tim Lincecum who's having a nice start against the D-Backs as I write this).

-I know it's been about a week in a half but I gotta say. Calling out A-Rod (twice).......A-Rod calling him out by saying he doesn't want to add to his 15 minutes of fame......pitching a perfect game 2 days later........I don't care what happens the rest of his career, Dallas Braden is THE man.

-Who doesn't like a good list to ignite some discussion? Why Do I say this? The Sporting News just released their list of the top 50 players in the game.

To the surprise of not very many people, Albert Pujols is their #1 player. The show the list plus where they ranked last year (if applicable). This year 19 of the 50 players were nowhere to be found in 2009.

Out of those 19 players, the five I see as most likely to be on the list in 2011:

Prince Fielder

Matt Kemp

Andre Ethier

Pablo Sandoval

Felix Hernandez

The Five Newcomers Least Likely To Be On The List in 2011:

Todd Helton

Adam Wainwright

Aaron Hill

John Lackey

Bobby Abreu

Connor Jackson busts out a game-tying 2-run triple to tie things up at 2.......slightly increasing the chance of my team being 5-2 come Monday......which happens to be the score in favor of the D-Backs after Mark Reynolds took Lincecum deep......................

That's all for now....till next time.....

The Ramble 5/8: Brewers-D Backs, Robin Roberts & Lefty/Right Power Duos

Yaayy for some Saturday Baseball and it being late enough in the day for it to not be blacked out by Fox.

The time between my last post and now have seen the Brewers split with one LaTroy Hawkins induced loss and a victory over Arizona where the bullpen pitched 4 scoreless innings after Gallardo left due to a high pitch count. Another positive out of last nights game was Hoffman getting another fairly drama free save last night putting him at 2 for 2 for the month of May.

For the Brewers, the face their second starter who is making their second career start (Cesar Valdez) in the last three days. This led to trouble the other day as the Brewers looked lost against Joe Ely. So far it is looking like trouble again as the Brewers failed to capitalize on a 2nd and 3rd with Braun, Fielder and McGehee coming up and coming up empty. On the flip side, Arizona's bats are looking strong out of the gate with a 1-0 lead and on the cusp of adding some more runs.

As for the fantasy team, Things are looking pretty good right now with a 265-218.5 lead. Despite my pitchers having less starts this week.....holding on to win looks like something that could reasonably happen with Bucholz being pushed around for 5 runs in 5 innings......if the Twins push around Millwood some tonight the chances of going up to 4-1 should go up a bit more.

Randy Wolf may have won his last 6 starts in Arizona. However, the way this game is starting, winning 7 in a row is looking questionable. On the brighter side, Wolf was able to avoid complete disaster by inducing a DP with the bases load to limit the damage to 2 runs.

Steeped away from the computer for awhile...its nice to see the Brewers cut into the lead by making it a 2-1 game......time to see what else is going on around baseball.

Baseball lost another member of the Hall of Fame with the passing of Robin Roberts. While his career came and gone way before my time, the numbers show many areas that were impressive.

First of all, the number of innings he logged in (300+ in a six-year stretch).....he threw 20+ Complete Games in 8 different seasons.....and 305 in his career (plus he found time in there for 25 career saves).

If someone tried to give somebody that many innings these days, whoever was their manager would probably never hear the end of it and would be accused of ruining said pitcher at the earliest sign of injury. My take: if the pitchers could hold up for this many innings 50 years ago and the improvements in conditioning these days....why couldn't we get pitchers back to expecting to pitch all 9 every time out?

Another thing I've looked at for players announcing their retirement & when the Hall of Fame voting results come in is look at the similar players index for from Baseball-Reference and see if it gives us a clue to what other players may see Cooperstown's doors in future years:

In Robert's case, 4 of these said similar pitchers are not in the Hall of Fame (Jim Kaat, Tommy John, Bert Blyleven and Jack Quinn). Taking a look at these players backgrounds the one thing that sticks out is Roberts lead in Complete Games at 305 (none of the other pitchers have more than 243).

Looking at career Wins (not the best measurement but it tends to sway more than enough voters) everyone except Quinn won between 283 and 287 games). ERA is also very close (3.29 to 3.41) as is ERA+ (108 to 118). Taking a closer look the thing that got Roberts into the Hall of Fame but not these four other pitchers was Roberts was more dominant at his peak than his statistical neighbors. He finished in the Top 10 in MVP voting 5 times between 1950 and 1955 while the other pitchers combined for only one.....considering that its tougher for pitchers to get MVP votes than hitters....still.....it shows the overall number similarites do indicate that Kaat, Blyleven and John should get a chance to get into Cooperstown at some point down the road.

During my look at these pitchers, the Brewers had themselves a nice 3rd inning to take a 5-2 lead......giving Randy Wolf a much better chance to run his in-Arizona winning streak to 7 games.

The Brewers managed to avoid their struggles against pitchers with <2>

So i've been watching the Arizona feed for the game on MLB Network and their broadcast team has been heavily discussing Righty/Lefty power-hitting duos discussing various ones within the last few decades and heavily promoting their fan text poll of the best righty/lefty power duo in the game today with the choices being (Fielder/Braun, Werth/Howard, Longoria/Pena & Zimmerman/Dunn). They had been heavily urging viewers to vote Zimmerman/Dunn until Braun went deep and they told viewers it was ok to vote Fielder/Braun. But that is besides the point....with it being 11-2 in the 5th, I decided to take a closer look to see how these duos stack up.

My Rankings:

4- Zimmerman/Dunn

Zimmerman is a good hitter but I wouldn't put him in the elite category. Adam Dunn, the 3TO here himself and the only player amongst these duos with other 300 career Home Runs....willing to overlook the strikeouts, still there are better options here.

3- Longoria/Pena

Carlos Pena bounced around the bigs for several years before settling in at Tampa. He has a couple Top 10 MVP finishes and led the league in homers last year. Longoria hasn't led the league in anything nor finished in the top 10 in MVP voting but the way he is progressing, it is only a matter of time before he does so.

2-Werth/Howard

Werth (like Pena) took a few years to get into the right situation and has rewarded the Phillies with a couple of 30-Homer plus seasons. Ryan Howard was rewarded with that $125 million contract as he already has 4 Top 10 MVP finishes and has led the NL in homers twice and RBIs three times.

1-Braun/Fielder

Alright, this could be the result of homerism but the numbers do back up Braun and Fielder being the best duo. This is the only duo where both players have OPS+ totals of 140 or above (Braun 143+ & Fielder 140+) the only other player amongst the duos over 140 is Howard. They've combined to only lead in Homers and RBIs once (Fielder 07/Fielder 09) but they've already combined for 3 Top 10 MVP Finishes. If we were going on an individual basis, Howard would have a good case to get in the top-2 but having Jayson Werth as the other half of the duo doesn't help.

My decision to continue watching the game while the outcome is not in question is rewarded as it allowed me to watch Jody Gerut successfully hit for the cycle......pushing the Brewers run total up to 16.....now 17.........third time the Crew have busted out 17 runs in a game.....first Brewers cycle since 2004 and the 291st in MLB History.

Well.....it's been fun...the Brewers got a nice victory in Arizona.....saw a little bit of history....more than a little bit of hitting....till next time

The Ramble 5/6: Brewers-Dodgers, Tasers, Eric Byrnes and more

Well, it's been a week since I posted anything. Been a pretty busy week, just turned 27 (my body decided to give the gift of a cold for said birthday)......anyways I ain't here to talk about that....its time to talk some baseball.

-What the Brewers have done since I last posted: They lost 3 out of 4 and scored a whopping total of 2 runs in a 4 game series to a San Diego Padres team (which by the has a real chance to contend....if Blanks and/or Venable get things together and Headley continues his strong start....this should give them enough offense to make a serious playoff push)

-The first two games of the Brewers-Dodgers series have been much more encouraging. The Brewers bats came alive and dropped a couple of 11-spots on the Dodgers. (However, the Dodgers just took a 1-0 lead against the Brewers on a Walk, Steal and back-to-back Sac Flys....well at least Dave Bush still has a no-no going.

-One thing I like about the Brewers playing the Dodgers is being able to watch it on the big-screen and not having to worry about the mlb.tv feed.

-Fantasy Teams Update: Cheddarhead is in 8th place.......the Razzball team is languishing in 9th....the random CBSSports league is the only one doing well.

-For that team, i'm sitting pretty well at 3-1......despite having a 9 1/2 point lead (159.5 to 150), i'm not sure about my chances of going to 4-1 as I have 2 starts remaining and my opponent has 4 starts remaining

-For any chance to win, things pretty much have gone down as I needed them to today (Strong starts by Halladay and Cain coupled with a rough start for Kazmir).......now if Niemann follows suit and has a good start in Seattle, that should put me in a much better spot to be competitive.

-One sign of trouble for the Brewers, the pitcher for the Dodgers is John Ely who is making his second career start (for some reason the Brewers going up against someone making their first or second start always seems to be a sign of trouble.

-Now to surf around the internets to see what else is going on in the baseball world: It looks like the end is here for Eric Byrnes . Starting off the season at 3 for 38 and his last solid season occurring in 2007, this is probably the last we'll see of Byrnes on a major-league diamond. Speaking of 2007, he did happen to finish 11th in the NL MVP voting that year (despite a 103 OPS+). Looking at his B-R page its pretty obvious he's not a Hall of Famer......he does have the common link with his most similar player (Jeffrey Hammonds) of getting 3-year contracts ($30 million for Byrnes, $27 million for Hammonds) that they didn't even come close to living up to.

-It looked like the Brewers were gonna get out of the second unscathed....routine grounder turned into a Prince Fielder error....2-0 Dodgers......grrrhhhh.....on the bright side it is still early and if the Brewers bats act like they have the last couple nights....2 runs is not an insurmountable deficit......with Xavier Paul hitting a double to make it 3-0......time to get a bit worried

-Listening to the broadcast....random comment was made about Joe Ely looking like Matthew McConaughey........it don't matter what else he does in his career he will always be associated with Wooderson from Dazed and Confused to me

-Randomly stumbling around the internets and saw that ESPN writer Rob Neyer has embarked on a 30-part series where he breaks down team eras by players. In a not so shocking development, the Red Sox and Yankees are the first two teams that get covered......considering ESPN is involved in this series, it should come as no surprise that these are the teams that get covered first (wouldn't expect anything less from ESPN).

-A story that is a few days old but i'm gonna talk about it because I haven't had the time or chance to do so yet: The Taser Incident: In episode 2 of the season of Phillies fans behaving badly. So a Phillies fan runs onto the field and gets tasered and has generated controversy:

-My take: It was the right move. When you have funs doing stuff like this running onto the field, usually it's an attempt to get their 15 seconds of attention and usually aren't a physical threat. HOWEVER, you never know......if someone is nuts enough to think they can get away with running on the field....you don't know what their intent is.....you never know what their thinking is.......you never know whether its someone who wants to run circles around the outfield or if they want to cause physical damage to someone on the field.....point being on the security perspective, if you are struggling to apprehend whoever is on the field and feel the Taser is necessary go for it.......if you are the fan dumb enough to run on the field........dude your running onto the ballfield......sorta tough to feel sorry for you.

-Well that's all for now....till next time