New York Sports

Team USA is falling apart at the seams more each passing day, and last night, they suffered another blow. The game did and will continue to go on, but with few to no reserves, it is getting scarier by the minute. Reserves can and will be called on for the semifinals this weekend, but their effectiveness in this tournament will remain to be seen in front of the world.

Here is a list of how the Yankees have done so far in spring training. Keep in mind that nobody even has 50 at-bats, so the sample size is a little bit too small to draw conclusions from. It’s still nice to see how people are doing.

The list is via ESPN, and I took out quite a few guys with less than 10 at-bats, although not everyone.

Stats as of March 19, 2009

The bullpen in Flushing, New York has been subject to a lot of finger pointing over the years. But with names like Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Carlos Beltran at the top of the order, and Johan Santana at the top of the rotation, it made Aaron Heilman and Luis Ayala look all the worse.

With 29 blown saves last year (third worst in the majors), the pen left us with some bitter memories. Worse, it caved more then ever down the stretch as the Mets narrowly lost their playoff spot to the Phillies for the second straight year.

In yesterday’s article, No Room in Yankees Pen for Joba Anyways, I wrote about the current state of the Yankees' bullpen and the depth that they have now that they didn’t a year ago.

One player I left out of the article was Steven Jackson. Jackson is a 27-year-old reliever who was left out because his upside isn’t as high as some of the other pitchers, but I should have included him because of his spot on the 40-man roster.

<!--StartFragment-->

Who ever said money can’t buy happiness obviously never talked to a Yankee fan.

The New York Mets' offense was noticeably anemic today in their spring training game against the Atlanta Braves. In their defense, most of the offensive stars are either playing in the World Baseball Classic or did not make the trip to Orlando.

Wow, what domination. The Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 12-0. How could I hand out an “F” or even a “C” for that matter?

A+—Joba Chamberlain

He pitched three scoreless innings while giving up two hits and striking out three. This is good news for me because I drafted Joba Chamberlain in my fantasy baseball draft last night.

A+—Kei Igawa

With all due respect to the Tampa Bay Rays, the two favorites are finally in the building—the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

I feel a little bad about doing this because it's one of the primary reasons people really hate these two franchises—they get all the hype no matter how recent and thunderous their failures.

Boston lost the American League East and the AL Championship Series to Tampa in 2008. New York failed to even qualify for the playoffs. Yet, here I am, touting both as the kings of the hill with no reason except offseason headlines.

It seems like everyone is making their picks for who wins the AL East. I'm going to take it one step further and look at both the AL and NL East, arguably baseball's best divisions.

Lets start in the National League. The East is a powerful division. Will the defending World Champion Phillies again take the top spot? Will the Mets suffer another late-season collapse? Can the Marlins overtake them both? Will the Nats actually look good this year?

Barring major injuries and some fluky miracle season, here are my picks for the NL East.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Shea Stadium. Let's welcome Bob Murphy to the microphone (Tim McCarver is up in the TV booth) to introduce the Irish Mets—a list of Mets who have at least Irish-sounding names. Feel free to hit comments to add suggestions, nitpick heritage, or bitch. Bob, take it away... (no, I'm not going to attempt to write in Murph-cadence).