Baseball

Before the 2010 Major League Baseball season began, I really wanted to put the San Francisco Giants atop the division when previewing the National League West .

Instead, I stuck them in second and gave them the NL Wild Card because I figured the more grandiose vision was the product of the fan in me.

Furthermore, I thought granting them a postseason berth was still setting the bar pretty high. Possibly a little too high.

The Rockies have been to the playoffs two of the last three years. They have one of the best lineups in baseball. They have an ace who is 4-0 and has an ERA well below 1.00. They have respect from around the league. Judging by the way the Rockies are playing, it would be easy to guess that these Rockies are less like a playoff team, and more like the Rockies from the "Todd and the toddlers" era.

Today, in the Braves second consecutive win (we need one more for a winning streak), Troy Glaus had three hits in four trips to the plate (his only out was when Hunter Pence made a diving grab) bringing his season average up 25 points to .221.

A.J. Pierzynski’s two out, two-run seventh inning double was the difference, as Chicago edged New York, 7-6 Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. Andrew Jones posted his 40th career multi-homer game in the win. The Yankees' loss snapped a five-game winning streak against the White Sox dating back to last season.

Last night, the Mets sent a message to the Phillies by winning in a lopsided fashion. They let the Phils know this is not the same team they were last year.

The Mets backed it up by hitting home runs and pitching well. They even plunked a batter after the Phils hit Jeff Francoeur.

Today, it was the Phillies' turn. They responded by blowing out the Mets in a 10-rout on national television.

The Phillies set the tone in the fourth inning by scoring six runs. From there, Roy Halladay stymied the Mets for a complete game shutout.

The Phillies took this one in a laugher as the Mets became one of the many victims of Roy Halladay’s greatness. Halladay was the star of the game throwing a complete game, the 52nd of his career. He only gave up 3 hits and 1 walk against 6 strikeouts. This game was the 17th shutout of Halladay’s 13-year career.

As April draws to a close, the New York Yankees find themselves 15-7, 1.5 games behind the first-place Tampa Bay Rays. It was a good month for the Yankees, especially considering the slow start last year.

So far, we've seen some really good, promising things. We've also seen some not-so-good things. So what are the positives and negatives?

Shall we?

The Positives

1) Robinson Cano

Following a Nick Swisher home run Saturday, the Yankees just reclaimed a 6-5 lead from the White Sox after Javier Vazquez's slow start put the Yankees in a quick hole.

However, in the top of the seventh, Yankee manager Joe Girardi pulled Sergio Mitre who pitched well in relief of Vazquez and went with reliever David Robertson. Robertson was projected to be one of the team's best relievers going in 2010.

Detroit Tigers fans remember Curtis Granderson.

Don't they?

Granderson was ushered off to New York in a multi-player deal, and the former fan-favorite is now a distant memory to the MoTown faithful.

In exchange for Granderson in the three-team merry-go-round, the Tigers received Austin Jackson, Max Scherzer, Daniel Schlereth and Phil Coke.

And the Arizona Diamondbacks got shafted.

The Cleveland Indians are toiling at 9-13 right now, and while their won-lost record isn't really a surprise, the biggest concern is their lack of offense. With the Indians closing in on a month of games, I really only have one question: Wasn't the Indians' offense supposed to be the strength of this baseball team? There wasn't a lot of doubt that the Indians had some talented sticks heading into the season.