Baseball

After a seemingly endless nine-game slide, the Orioles have added one more notch to the win column and currently sit at the bottom of the AL East standings with a record of 2-11.

In 1947, Ted Williams won the American League's Triple Crown. He led the league in batting with a .343 average, in home runs with 32, and in RBIs with 114.  Williams had a .499 on base average, a .634 slugging percentage, and drew 162 walks.

In 1947, Joe DiMaggio hit .315 with 20 home runs and 97 RBIs. He had a .391 on base average, a .522 slugging percentage and 64 walks.

There is no comparison.

Tampa Bay Rays GM Andrew Friedman has been the best in baseball in accumulating young starting pitching. And they are not just young. They are good. They are very good.

The cup is overflowing in Tampa Bay.

After two weeks of the season, all five of the Rays starters are tapping into their immense potential.

This New Yorker is by no means a Boston Red Sox fan. But if I were, I'd now be thinking in terms of "wait till next year," Yogi Berra fashion.

Many might say, 'but it's just early in the season, there are almost 150 games to go.' But that's just the point: The Red Sox are already five games behind both the New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays.

Which is like giving "rook odds" in chess to such talented players.

You could feel the charge of the Marlins' in the ninth inning of an 8-6 Phillies win on Friday night.

Phillies ace Roy Halladay left the rain-plagued game in the eighth inning with an 8-2 lead.

Reliever David Herndon gave up four runs to make 8-6 before Ryan Madson closed the door, allowing one inherited runner to score.

The Marlins' Ricky Nolasco almost shut out the Phillies the following night, save Jayson Werth's two-out ninth inning solo home run. The Marlins won the second game, 5-1.

So far this season, the Pittsburgh Pirates have given up 75 runs and scored only 53.

That (negative) differential is better than only those of the cellar-dwelling Baltimore Orioles and Houston Astros. So you wouldn't expect the Pirates to be 7-5, or above the .500 mark. But they are.

That's because their six most recent victories have come with scores of 5-3, 5-4, 4-3, 6-5, and 6-3, and 4-3.

Only the opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers wasn't "close." This represents the most close games with which the Pirates have opened the season since at least 1996.

Mascots have been around since 1964, when Mr. Met appeared at the Shea Stadium opening. Since then, the major league baseball mascot has taken on incredible responsibilities including diving down slides, dancing on dugouts, and racing each other around the field for pure amusement.

The following is a ranking of the best mascots in baseball, from worst to first.

Lost in the very oddly played, sometimes head-scratching 20-inning marathon on Saturday between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals was the starting performance turned in by LHP Jaime Garcia.

The Cardinals’ rookie was very good on Saturday.

Garcia matched Mets ace Johan Santana pitch for pitch, giving up just one hit (a blooper by Angel Pagan), walking two, and striking out five in seven innings. He now has an 0.69 ERA in two starts (13 IP) this season.

When I was named a Featured Columnist for the Cleveland Indians last year, my fellow FC Samantha Bunten invited me to be a part of Tribe Talk, a weekly roundtable in which the top Indians writers on Bleacher Report talk about recent news and discuss how the team could better itself in the future.

Last week, as I was filling out Samantha's latest survey, I had the idea of creating a poll for not just one team's top writers, but for passionate fans around the league.

The story of the week was flame thrower Ubaldo Jimenez's incredible no hitter against the Braves.

The Phillies lose Jimmy Rollins to the DL, and the Twins opened up their new park in style.

The season is still in it's infancy, but certain teams are already seperating themselves from the rest of the crowd.

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