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| Morneau & Mauer would love to play Baltimore everyday. |
The M&M boys (Joe Mauer & Justin Morneau) and the Minnesota Twins for that matter, love playing the Baltimore Orioles; Mauer is batting .643 (9-for-14) and Morneau is batting .545 (6-for-11) -- Morneau has 3 HR & 9 RBI in 3 games! To make matters worse, Baltimore had a chance in two of those games to pull off the win, and blown both games... Game 3, the Birds led 6-1 through 6 innings, then came the 7th Inning and the bullpen self-destructed allowing 8 runs in the last 3 innings! Game 2, the Orioles had a 3-2 lead, which closer Jim Johnson blown.
The Twins lead the A.L. Central, at 3-0 with a +12 scoring differential, while batting .295 as a team.
The rest of the A.L. Central have been winning as well, the Chicago White Sox had a chance to become MLB's first 4-0 team, but their closer Bobby Jenks blown the save against Oakland & their record stands at 3-1 (+9 scoring)... the Cleveland Indians took a surprising 2 games from the Boston Red Sox & are in third at 2-0. The Detroit Tigers, in typical Tigers fashion, would be 3-0, if their bullpen didn't blow the last two games against the Florida Marlins.
The New York Yankees are loaded on offense, their starting pitching will be their achilles' heel.. they currently lead the A.L. East. The Toronto Blue Jays tore apart the Tampa Bay Rays in their first 2 match-ups, but ended up with a 2-2 series split (Toronto still outscored them by 7 runs in the series); Aaron Hill & Lyle Overbay each lead Toronto with 2 home runs each. Boston & Baltimore remain winless.
The Texas Rangers will likely be an American League favorite (2 World Series appearances in this 3-year period), Nelson Cruz currently has 3 HR & 5 RBI... The team has yet to get rolling on offense, hitting only .215 collectively at the moment, while their starting pitchers have been great, allowing only 4 earned runs in 21 innings -- being a huge part in their 2-1 record.
Now to the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies have been great as expected, the team has it all -- the lineup, rotation & bullpen... It's easy to see why they are the preseason N.L. favorites, standing at 3-0, despite the fact that they didn't play great against Cincinnati; Ryan Howard leads the team with 2 HR & 6 RBI already... Chase Utley in a bizarre game struck out 5 times!
The Pittsburgh Pirates currently lead the N.L. Central at 2-0, with two big victories over the St. Louis Cardinals -- remember this is before the Pirates returned to their winning ways, you can see a little of the potential to come in this team, but their current success may eventually be short-lived.
The N.L. Central should be a fun division to watch with no clear dominant team, with the edge going out to St.Louis for their two Grade A starting pitchers in a rotation in Adam Wainwright & Chris Carpenter -- There is only one other team in the entire league that has two A starters and that is the Philadelphia Phillies (Roy Halladay & Cliff Lee). The Cincinnati Reds have plenty of power in their lineup & will be an exciting bunch, but their starting pitching (outside of Johnny Cueto) is suspect at best.
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| Ian Kennedy & their rotation have been lights out, early on. |
The Arizona Diamondbacks are a surprising 3-1.. but are they legit? Blowing their last game, plus their scoring differential at a leveled zero, there is some visible cracks, like 16 combined hits in their 4 games, while their lineup has struck out 42 times already; Their starting pitching has been a huge surprise in their first four games -- 2 ER's allowed in 30.2 innings! Those starters' names? Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Josh Collmenter & Joe Saunders... I know, right?!
The N.L. West will likely see the San Diego Padres & Colorado Rockies struggle, while the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers (with Manny Ramirez, by the way) and possibly Arizona will be fighting for the division.
This format by the way will feature two wild cards per league, like in Major League Baseball.
Stupid bullpen! >:-/
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