Opinion

With the way that the game has changed over the past few decades, relief pitching has become a substantially more integral part of baseball.

Brandon Phillips is a great man and just made baseball really interesting. Unless you're a St. Louis Cardinals fan, or don't like the Reds, you should agree with that statement.

Phillips recently had some very colorful things to say about St. Louis that a ballplayer usually would say about their rival, comparing them to little female dogs.

When Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos traded away Toronto's anointed next great First Baseman Brett Wallace, even the most hardcore of fans were perplexed.

We tried to console ourselves with speculation regarding Adam Lind taking over 1B full time or waxing poetic on Anthony Gose's huge upside (the guy we got in exchange for Wallace).

This season has not been a good season for many high-payroll MLB Franchises.

The Red Sox have endured countless injuries, putting their backs against the wall for the Wild Card chase. 

The Tigers and Dodgers both see struggles to claw back into contention.

The Cubs placed Geovany Soto and Derrek Lee on the 15-day disabled list and the bereavement list, respectively, on Tuesday. In their stead will be 23-year-old Welington Castillo and 30-year-old Micah Hoffpauir from Triple-A Iowa.

The San Francisco Giants have finally begun to start pulling away from the pack of wolves in the NL West. The Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers are falling behind in the standings, and it is fast becoming a two-horse race between the Giants and the San Diego Padres.

Brandon Phillips of the Cincinnati Reds has had his fill of the St. Louis Cardinals.  When asked about his health after fouling a ball off his leg, Phillips had this to say.

Let's call the American League West for what it is, over. Pull out the white flag, hook it up, and raise it to the top of the flag pole and let it fly proudly.

That's the note that I would write to the front office of both the Oakland Athletics and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It's time for these two teams to call it a season, pack it in, and start planning their off season capabilities.

For those of us that love the game of baseball, there's one thing that we've gotten used to seeing but is something we don't see very often—the collision at home plate.

Baseball isn't a contact sport; it's never been known as one. But it has been known to happen and is part of the game.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are fading fast, and are already eying the San Francisco Giants with a fleeting hope of making a remarkable comeback and a wild-card berth.