Baseball

The Cleveland Indians are looking to bounce back from an awful 2009 season in which they went 65-97 and finished dead last in the AL Central. The worst season led by Eric Wedge since he took over the team back in 2003 when they were 68-94. The poor 2009 performance led to Wedge being fired during the offseason. He was replaced by Manny Acta.

In 1972, the Phillies Hall of Fame pitcher Steve Carlton went 27-10 and won the Cy Young Award on a bad Phillies team.

The team went 59-97, but on every fourth or fifth day when Carlton pitched, the Phillies were a different team and played like champions.

Fast forward to today, as another Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay took the hill against the Atlanta Braves in pre-season action Tuesday night. Halladay pitched three scoreless innings, giving up three hits, striking out five and walking none.

The Phillies won the game, 7-4.

While I tend to gravitate towards the players in the game that don’t get big time recognition, I still find a place in my heart for people who do.

Still, you aren’t going to find me talking about why I love Albert Pujols or Joe Mauer in this space. Although, the sport is in a great state with those two as the game’s best ambassadors.

With Spring Training in full swing, the Dodgers injuries are starting to tally. However, fans shouldn't panic—this sounds like the same record we have listened to for years. For the past decade, the Dodgers have had preseason injuries that make the news, and most often they make the news simply because it's Spring Training, and nothing else is going on.

Russell Martin, Casey Blake, and Cory Wade are already making headlines with reported injuries, but the Dodgers organization and the players don't seem concerned.

So the plan was to write this series of articles as the days ticked down to Opening Day. With the schedule that I was to commit to, an article on Chris Narveson should have been written a mere five days following my last posted article and 11 days ago. Suffice it to say that real life got in the way of this hobby, and I fell behind.

But fear not, loyal readers. I will catch up over the next couple of days and be right back on track.

With that said, allow me to discuss the aforementioned Chris Narveson and tell you my opinion on his prospects for the 2010 season.

The fact of the matter is this for Giants fans: Aaron Rowand is going to be the Giants center fielder on Opening Day, and he most likely is going to bat leadoff unless one of three things happen:

1. Mark DeRosa gets hurt again this Spring Training and is unable to play on Opening Day, which forces manager Bruce Bochy to play either Eugenio Velez or Andres Torres in left field (who would be slotted in at leadoff because of their speed).

For about half an hour this afternoon, Viera, Florida was the center of the baseball universe.

Stephen Strasburg, last season’s top amateur pick, took the mound and for the first time faced veteran major league players and not fuzzy-cheeked prospects.

"I was a prisoner in my own city," Milton Bradley told ESPN. But that was not all he said.

He was asked if race played a role in the "city's hatred" for Bradley. The response he gave to ESPN was repulsive.

"I got the same mail Latroy [Hawkins] probably got; the same mail Jacque [Jones] got," he told Colleen Dominguez on ESPN.

News flash Milton: Cubs fans everywhere didn't hate you because you were black. We hated you because you got paid an enormous sum of money and you sucked. You sucked beyond the acceptable level of sucking.

Last season, Joe Nathan saved 47 of Minnesota’s 87 victories.

The All-Star closer will be lucky to get one this year.

Nathan was removed from Saturday’s pre-season contest against the Red Sox after just one batter, citing elbow tightness and soreness. It was originally thought that the discomfort was due to breaking up scar tissue from an October surgery to remove bone chips from the reliever’s elbow, but an MRI showed the damage to be much more severe.

By now we’ve all heard about the injury to Joe Nathan, which has the potential to end his 2010 campaign before it even begins.  According to La Velle E. Neal III of the Minnesota Star-Tribune (click here for the full article):