NL East

With the Mets having lost the Cliff Lee sweepstakes, they are still in need of another starting pitcher.

Losing the last two games to the Braves and falling to five games out of first place and two back in the wild card race have made this need even more obvious.

It took a full eight innings for the Phillies to even get a man on base, but they needed only four hits and one run to take their third straight game from the Cincinnati Reds, all of them coming in walk-off fashion.

Rookie pitcher Travis Wood took a perfect game into the ninth, but watched it evaporate as a fresh-off-the-DL Carlos Ruiz hit a leadoff double.

As much as I hate to admit this, I think the Mets have been overachieving this year.

I'm not sure anyone would have guessed that they would have been playing this great of baseball this year.

No one expected stellar performances from R.A. Dickey, or even Angel Pagan. David Wright was a huge question mark, especially given his peculiar 2009 season. Jose Reyes's health has been in question.

Fredi Gonzalez is gone, but the Florida Marlins keep losing ground.

As the Atlanta Braves slowly walk away with the National League East, the Fish remain 10 games out of first, and four games below .500.

With the Midsummer Classic in a few days, Larry Beinfest and Co. must decide whether to become a buyer or seller.

Can the team pull off a win streak and stay in the race?

At this point in time, it appears to be the latter.

Yesterday's trade of Cliff Lee confirmed what a majority of Philadelphia Phillies and their fans suspected to be true all along—last winter's deal was a terrible blunder. 

With Cliff Lee out of the picture, it is looking like the Mets are going to stick with their squad for the rest of the season (fingers crossed for the return of Ty Wiggington).

From what I've seen out of the Mets starting rotation so far, Hisanori Takahashi is not a guy who should be in the rotation for a contending team such as the Mets. Takahashi is the kind of guy who has great off speed stuff, rarely blows anyone away with his fastball, and has questionable stamina after pitching on a seven man rotation in Japan.

The Mets have given us a great first half.  They've risen to every challenge they've faced this year and have shown us some serious chemistry, character, and toughness.

David Wright shook off his strikeout problem and emerged an MLB leader in RBI.

The team adjusted to power-killing Citi Field by becoming a lineup of solid contact hitters who are willing and able to drive run-scoring singles and doubles into the gaps to earn their wins.

I've been thinking about writing some MLB articles, and this is the first one of what I hope to be many.

So far this MLB season, when I hear about the best pitchers in the game, I hear about Roy Halladay (Phillies), Johan Santana (Mets), Felix Hernandez, and Cliff Lee (Mariners), but let me bring up the guy who I think is the best pitcher in baseball, Josh Johnson.

Give Adam Dunn credit—he's done everything possible over the past year and a half to increase his marketability as a trade chip. He's a truly marketable player who could help the Nationals and a lot of other teams too.

Let’s go old school for a second. Old school as in a game starts at 7:05 and ends at 9:14. That’s old school and means a very well-pitched game took place.

With the Philadelphia Phillies struggling, losing five of their last seven, they needed one of their pitchers to step up. That pitcher was Roy Halladay.

In a crucial three game series with the first-place Atlanta Braves, the Phillies drew first blood as Halladay outdueled Derek Lowe 3-1 in front of 45,000 plus at Citizens Bank Park.