Baseball

Brad Bergesen throws a fastball in the low 90's and he has only had one good year in the minor leagues.

You wouldn't expect he'd be a guy who can come in to the major leagues and have good starts against teams like the Mariners, Tigers, White Sox, and Yankees.

However, so far, the 23-year old Fairfield, CA native has done just that for the O's as a rookie. Bergesen has a 4-2 record, a 3.79 ERA and has collected 33 strikeouts while talllying a WHIP of 1.26, and pitched his first complete game on Sunday.

Welcome to Rudy Dominick & Johnny Lawrence's seventh weekly installment of Detroit Tigers information and analysis. 

Each Thursday, we will delve into all things Tigers. Read and digest, or skim and spit out our insightful banter.

Keep An Eye On

Thad Weber, Starting Pitcher—Lakeland Flying Tigers (A)

(June 11—June 18)

1-1, 16 IP, 11 H, 0 BB, 8 K, 1.12 ERA.

Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams,
it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
when no one else ever cared.

Here's my third update on how I think the All-Star rosters should look like, following the rules of at least one player from each team and overall 32 players. An asterisk* denotes injury. Agree or disagree? I'd love to hear.

American League:

First Base: Justin Morneau (Min) continues to be looked over for the two players in the AL East. He leads American League first basemen in RBI (56) and hits (84). He's also second in batting average (.324) and is very underrated defensively.

The San Diego Padres defeated the Seattle Mariners 4-3 Thursday afternoon in the rubber match of a three-game series. The Padres (29-36) were able to avoid a three-game sweep with the mid-day sun beaming down on the crowd of more than 25,000 at Petco Park.

The visiting Mariners (32-24) got out to an early lead when Ken Griffey Jr. jolted a ball deep to left-center field to plate Mike Carp for the 1-0 lead. Young Brandon Morrow started his second game since returning from the DL for the Mariners.

Another one bites the dust.

With this week's disappointing, yet predictable news that Sammy Sosa failed a drug test in 2003, the running list of great home run hitters linked to PED's continues to grow.  

While many people had already subconsciously assumed this to be true, the news put another dark cloud over America's past time once again.  

Then, the discussions began, does Sammy Sosa still belong in the Hall of Fame?

It was November of 2003, and the Red Sox were still crushed from the jarring defeat in Game Seven of the ALCS, at the hands of their hated nemesis yet again. Aaron Boone had hit a walk off home run off of knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.

The Yankees were going to the World Series. The Red Sox were going home. The pain became a little easier to swallow when the Yankees eventually lost the World Series to the Marlins.

One could say Josh Beckett has been doing things for the Sox since before he was traded to them.

I was forced to go to the game by myself last night because I just couldn't find anyone to go with me and I had to go.  I've decided it is actually good to go to a game by yourself every once in awhile.

I was able to really enjoy the game and just observe everything that was going on.  There were a few things that really stood out to me and reminded me why I love this game so much.

It started with Omar Vizquel before the game even started.

Anyone who knows Ubaldo Jimenez knows that his boyhood hero is Pedro Martinez. Jimenez watched his fellow country man dominate opposing Major League hitters from his home in the Dominican Republic.

There may be no crying in baseball, but there's definitely some heavy-duty lying going on. And it isn't just the players saying they've never done drugs.

It's the owners, the managers, the commissioner, the entire baseball establishment. Everyone's lying about drug use. The establishment still wants the public to believe that steroid abuse is the exception rather than the rule.