MLB

Want to know what's going to happen before it happens? Then The Fantasy Oracle is for you.

Two weeks of this season are in the books, and with a number of players off to outstanding starts, the question becomes “How much longer will they continue to perform at this level?” Are they headed for a slump, or just a correction?

The same can be said for the players who are off to poor starts. Is this slump going to be season-long, or will they break out? If they do breakout—the $64,000 question is when exactly they will break out.

Saturday's 22-4 Cleveland win at new Yankee Stadium was a stunner.

But, as most baseball fans know, momentum depends on the next game's starting pitcher, so you'd probably expect the Yankees to kind of return the favour to the Indians on Sunday afternoon.

After all, it would be the Yankees' new ace, A.J. Burnett, going up against former Bomber bust Carl Pavano.

Speed kills. 

And for Emilio Bonifacio, the Marlins' young speedster at the hot corner, it's his main tool. 

Born in the Dominican Republic, Bonifacio is 23-years-young, and has already been traded twice. 

Brought up in the Arizona Diamondbacks' organization, he made his MLB debut on September 1st, 2007.  Bonifacio was traded to the Washington Nationals on July 22th, 2008 for pitcher Jon Rauch, and immediately optioned to the Nationals' Triple A affiliate in Columbus.

Ryan Perry is giving hope to Tiger fans across Michigan. The confidence he's displayed and trust he's gained from manager Jim Leylend is more than any reliever did all of last season. Even as a rookie, Perry shows the confidence of a proven veteran.

In an impressive 8-2 victory over Seattle on Sunday, Perry topped the radar gun at times by hitting 100 mph, and would follow up these pitches with 85 mph change-ups.

His line for Sunday's game was impressive: 2/3 innings pitched, 19 pitches, 13 for strikes, two hits, one earned run, and one strikeout.

After two weeks for the Cardinals, there have been good and bad things, promising and unpromising things, and most importantly, good and bad results.  The good has been the hitting, especially the homers, and the bad has been the blown saves/losses by the bullpen.

The Good

Well, I might as well start with the most important player, Albert Pujols. He has four homers and 14 RBI (half have been in one game, however) so far this season. 

I'm looking for something good to say about the three-game set the Colorado Rockies just completed at Chavez Ravine with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The only thing that comes to mind is this: I'm glad it's over.

Kurt Russell wasn't as happy to escape from L.A. back in 1996 as Clint Hurdle is today.

I can see only two bright spots from the entire series: Jorge De la Rosa's encouraging start on Friday when he found a way to pitch himself out of a number of jams, and Rockies' hitters swatting four home runs in the series.

During the turn of the century, the Yankees were the premier team in major league baseball, with players who knew how to play, and contribute positively for Joe Torre, as they won four World Series between 1997-2000.

But in 2001, the end of the dynasty became apparent, as key players Scott Brosius, Tino Martinez, Chuck Knoblauch, and Paul O'Neill all either retired or moved onto different teams.

Most of the time, splitting a four game series in New York with the Yankees is cause for celebration for the Cleveland Indians.

While the Tribe has many things to be encouraged about after the inaugural series in New Yankee Stadium the thought that they had the chance to christen the new venue by sweeping the Yankees out of their new home has to eat them alive.

This series may describe the Atlanta Braves organization as well as any other metaphor could. After being shut down, scoring zero runs, for two games, the Braves put up 11 on the Pittsburgh Pirates to prevent the sweep on Sunday afternoon.

With an off season loaded with one “swing and a miss” after another, the Braves came back to seize some victory in that battle as well.

This is a new series I'm starting where I'm going to go around baseball and choose one top prospect from each organization and I'll profile them. Hope you enjoy the series and this one about Phillies' prospect Antonio Bastardo.

Video

Bastardo was born in the Dominican Republic on September 21, 1985.

He was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies and was sent to the Lakewood BlueClaws after going undrafted in the 2007 MLB Amateur Draft