Opinion

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse after the Tigers lost Joel Zumaya to a serious elbow injury, valued third baseman Brandon Inge had his hand broken by a wild pitch.

However, the Tigers can’t just simply pout about the situation.  Instead, they need to show some confidence in their depth at third base, just as they are in their pitching staff.

The Tigers are in a rough patch, to say the least right now.

At this point in my life, I'm rarely overwhelmed by anything in sports anymore.

Sure, every once in awhile there are some pleasant surprises like Landon Donovan's goal against Algeria, Stephen Strasburg's start against the Pirates, even seeing Danica Patrick in a bathing suit for the first time. But for the most part, sports are an endless conveyor belt of 7-2  baseball games, two touchdown football blowouts and Louis Oosthuzien's 32 stroke British Open victory. In other words, everything kind of runs together. Nothing sticks out.

As reported yesterday, the Mets are shopping Jeff Francoeur.

Attendance is down. All-Star ratings are at an all-time low. A regular season in which four of the six divisions are within three games of one another is being overshadowed by "The Decision."

People can blame the overall apathy among the casual fan on the fact that we are in the post-steroid era, but that is just putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. No-hitters and perfect games have become as common as grand slams. Although special, they are quickly becoming ho-hum in the eyes of the media.

These days in Montreal, baseball fans have a reason to cheer for the very first time since the Expos left town to Washington D.C. to become the Nationals.

One of the greats in Expos history will be inducted finally into Cooperstown's Hall of Fame. That is Andre “The Hawk” Dawson.

It is quite obvious the Philadelphia Phillies are in a slump. A team riddled by injuries and inconsistency without an ignition towards change.

Despite getting an extra innings 2-0 win in St. Louis yesterday, where Cole Hamels shined, the team still showed the overwhelming stress that comes from being back-to-back National League Champions.

The Phillies have been plagued by non-existent bats that have turned consistent players like Jayson Werth searching for a way to right the ship.

Generally, I am not one to blame managers for a team's performance.  Mets fans have wanted Jerry Manuel's head since he was hired in 2008.  

His even-keeled, sometimes humorous attitude about the ebbs and flows of a Major League season is, quite frankly, the way a manager ought to perceive the marathon that is a baseball season, but it has often rubbed Mets' fans, who live and die with every pitch, the wrong way.

My four kids, like most all kids, hate doing chores at home. Over the past couple of seasons, the Diamondbacks have been much like my kids and doing chores, they just don’t get the job done. In the case of Arizona, the chore they have struggled at is getting the sweeping done.

Who woke up the Pirates offense after the all-star break? Whoever it was, what took you so long? The Pirates entered the break with pretty much the worse offense in baseball. It looked like it would be another long and dreadful summer, but the Bucs have come out swinging the sticks to begin the second half of the season.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim acquired Kansas City Royals infielder, and former Angel farmhand, Alberto Callaspo.

So?

For months, Angels fans sat fidgeting in front of computer monitors and television screens, desperate for news that their team pulled off some sort of trade to make up for the loss of Kendry Morales, to make up for the failure of Brandon Wood, or just to make up ground on the Texas Rangers.

It didn't matter, as long as the organization showed some interest in its own future.