Best Slideshows - Team

Finally. Or maybe that should read, "Final-Lee?"

The Seattle Mariners made a huge trade in the offseason to acquire the services of former Cy Young winner Cliff Lee, and tonight, a month into the season, he will make his first appearance on the mound.

Lee got off on the wrong foot this year. Literally. Literal-Lee. A couple of weeks prior to spring training, he needed a minor surgery on his foot and would miss the start of the exhibition season.

The White Sox are awful.

There are a few other adjectives and nouns to describe the White Sox so far in the 2010 season, but those would be bleeped out.

The Sox have had terrible starting pitching mixed with a streaky offense that can't get on base, but has provided a lot of home runs.

The question marks on the Sox have actually been pretty good, whereas, the thought to be solid guys have been terrible.

Begin Slideshow

When Chris Iannetta hit the tenth-inning homer off of Jenrry Mejia to seal a 6-5 win for the Rockies and a fourth straight loss for the Mets, Flushing fans were conceding the season all over the Internet.

On April 14.

They split the next four to sit at 4-8 on April 18. They lost the first four series of the year.

Fifteen days later, the Mets are in first place. They just finished their best homestand in 20 years. They swept the Dodgers for the first time since 1995.

Everything gloomy two weeks ago suddenly shines.

When you think of recent Yankees teams, generally the first thing that comes to mind is the high-scoring offense.

With guys like Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, and Derek Jeter leading your offense, the Yankees are never out of any games where they are behind.

But when you get right down to what the major strength of the current Yankees really is, you will see that it is the starting pitching.

When at his best, AJ Burnett is one of the best pitchers in baseball.

When Burnett is at his best, he is dominant.

When he is at his best is the key.

Every other time, he seems downright terrible.

The last World Series was a prime example.

Burnett started Game Two. He was brilliant, giving up one lonely run and scattered four hits in seven innings of work. The victory jump-started the Yankees in the World Series who, at the time, had a one-game deficit to the Philadelphia Phillies.

I know, I know. You’ve never heard of Tom Milone. He’s just another no-name pitcher toiling somewhere within the deep recesses of the Washington Nationals’ minor league system.

You’ve seen the various top-20 prospect lists for 2010 and he’s nowhere to be found.

*Yawn.*

“Wake me when we get to the All-Star break," you might be thinking.

OK, you’ve never heard of Tom Milone. I got that. But I’m very sure that, prior to his call up in mid 2007, you had never heard of John Lannan either.

As part of the Tampa Bay Rays' housekeeping after Dioner Navarro's two-game suspension, the Rays optioned long man Mike Ekstrom to AAA.

Ekstrom's spot was taken by Durham catcher Jose Lobaton. 

It will be a short stay for Lobaton. Once the Oakland two-game series is concluded, Navarro will be back with the team.

Joining him will be a new reliever.

Baseball is one really weird game.

One second you're feeling like an unstoppable freight train. Everything clicks: Pitching, hitting, defense.

It just works.

Then you blink, and BAM! Everything's upside down, and images of Manny Ramirez rounding the bases or David Eckstein singlehandedly defeating the Giants cause fans to toss and turn.

One can only really describe this as "a series of unfortunate events."

The Rangers are in an absolute free fall, the Texas sky is falling and somewhere in the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex, Chicken Little is running around screaming about it.

Well, ok, it's not really that bad just yet but Chicken Little may as well be Ranger fans because they certainly believe the sky is falling down on top of The Ballpark at Arlington.

They want Ron Washington fired as quickly as possible, the bullpen needs a drastic makeover and no I'm not talking about hair and nails, and the team needs to stop this slide their on after losing six of their last seven.

There are already some c

When you think of top pitchers in the game, names like C.C. Sabathia, Tim Lincecum, Zack Greinke, Felix Hernandez, and Johan Santana come up.

Nowhere in the discussion does Philadelphia Phillies ace Roy Halladay come up...except with Phillie fans.

However, after what we've seen from Halladay in the first four games of the 2010 season, is it too early to give him the NL Cy Young Award?

Philadelphia fans would be happy for Major League Baseball to go ahead and do this, while others would be hesitant, especially San Francisco Giants and New York Mets fans.