Baseball

After the Washington Nationals’ 11-2 humbling at the hands of the Atlanta Braves, Ryan Zimmerman promised a better effort from the club on Tuesday. Then Zimmerman went out and backed up that promise.

Despite Zimmerman’s tremendous effort, a lack of clutch hitting and a tenth inning error by Jayson Werth allowed the Marlins to win 3-2 on a walk-off hit by Donnie Murphy.

Looks like summer has come early for Mark Teixeira this year.  After two abysmal starts to the past two seasons, Teixeira is starting off 2011 very strong.  The Yankees first basemen, hitting his fourth home run of the season in just his fifth game, looks very comfortable up at the plate and is doing a lot better than he usually does in the month of April.

The Cleveland Indians have gotten off to shaky start. After three games, the team has the second best team batting average, .318 just behind the Chicago White Sox batting .324.  Collectively, Cleveland has scored 20 runs, 20 RBI, 35 hits, four doubles and four home runs. So what's the problem?

Currently, Michael Brantley starts off the lineup, followed by Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-Soo Choo, Carlos Santana, Travis Hafner, Orlando Cabrera, Austin Kearns, Matt LaPorta and Jack Hannahan.

Protagonist and antagonist. Hero and villain.

Every novel has them, even poorly-written ones.  In many stories, they are easily defined. 

But what happens when it becomes difficult to delineate which is which?

It seems that the great stories—the ones that remain in our psyche—have a protagonist-antagonist dynamic that leans toward this type of ambiguity, causing tension and making us wonder:  Who is the good guy?

In Monday’s Closer’s Corner, I singled out the Angels bullpen and suggested Fernando Rodney’s struggles could soon lead to a change.

On Tuesday, Mike Scioscia stripped Rodney of his ninth inning duties until “he gets back in touch with some things.”

There aren't many rivalries in baseball bigger than that between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies.

Ever since the Phillies stunned the Mets by overcoming a seven-game deficit to win the division in '07, there has been a growing feud between the two squads.

Historically, baseball is not a sport one would call "friendly" to first-year athletes. The most talented of prospects commonly struggle in "the Show" during their initial go-around.

The New York Yankees bullpen has received limitless hype and praise early in the season, and they are already being dubbed as the best in MLB—as well as the best in NY since 1996.

While the group has accomplished nothing to this point, this does not mean that a proper nickname should not be added to the front of the hype machine.

It took mere hours for “Miami Thrice” to be created, and “The Fab Five” represents a team that never won a championship in its short time together.

It’s early, so I will update these as needed throughout the week. 

First base is the deepest position in the game and generally ranking the top names is like splitting hair. Let’s take a look at how things shake out for the coming week:

The best pitcher in New York Yankees history was Whitey Ford. The Yankees' little gamecock won 236 games during his illustrious career.

Andy Pettitte finished his career with 240 wins. Pettitte will always be identified as a Yankee, but the three seasons he spent with the Houston Astros cost him the chance to pass Ford as the Yankees' all-time leader in wins.