Opinion

Here we are, New York Mets fans. It's nearing the midway point of the season, and the team we love is a half-game out of first, and 10 games above .500.

Who would have thunk it? Certainly not me.

I went into this season with mixed feelings about this team.

I felt that if they could stay healthy, they could put up a fight, and maybe sneak into the playoffs via the Wild Card.

I felt the pitching staff would be a major issue. I felt the team still lacked the "chemistry" that seems to be important when making a run at a championship.

The Oakland Athletics were hanging tight in the race for the American League 
West division title. After the past two series where the A's have lost five games out of six that were played, it has become clear the A's need to make some major adjustments. 

That would involve making trades for a big time bat in the lineup. The only problem is, what self-respecting player would want to play for Bob Geren? This was shown by the most recent trade the A's have made. 

It's a wonder seeing a starting pitcher winless this far into the season. After 13 or 14 starts, one would expect several wins, losses, and no decisions from them. When you're paying a guy over $7 million to pitch for your team, you expect a few wins, especially if your team's in first place.

The Baltimore Orioles feel this way about Kevin Millwood, certainly. He has 14 appearances, a 5.16 ERA, an 0-8 record, and leads the American League in home runs and hits allowed. It could be that his career is nearing his end.

The game of baseball is rich in history and luster, but in the last two decades or so, the game has fallen out of favor in many baseball cities.

As the trade deadline approaches, teams are going to be pulling the trigger on deals that could have an impact on the rest of the season.

The American League East is always one of the most competitive divisions. Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs have put Kosuke Fukudome on the trade market. The outfielder has a no-trade clause and said he is willing to waive it for the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. 

When Ryan Hanigan went on the disabled list with a broken hand on May 29th, it wasn't something that people in many circles discussed.  

The team was playing so well, so what was there to discuss?

I knew the moment it occurred that the pitching staff would greatly suffer.  

Hanigan is THAT good behind the plate with his handling of the pitching staff, skill in blocking errant pitches, and ability to throw out would-be base stealers.

With Hanigan behind the dish, the Reds team ERA is 3.77.  

Houston Astros' first baseman Lance Berkman has told Yahoo's Jeff Passan that waiving his no-trade clause in a potential deal to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim was not an "automatic yes."

Watching Ubaldo Jimenez is strange.

At times he looks like a power pitcher, inducing strikeouts one after the other. At other times, he seems like an efficiency pitcher, inducing ground ball double plays when his W is on the line. The type of pitcher he is though, doesn't seem to matter any more.

What does matter, is that he is helping to keep an average, if not below average at times, Rockies club in the NL West race. As a fellow Bleacher Reporter put it, the Rockies are the definition of "Meh" this year. They don't look good, but they don't look Mendoza either.

Today continues the legacy of Bob Geren's incompetency as the Oakland Athletics manager. How he got invited to be one of the managers in the all-star game by Joe Girardi is beyond me. 

There's no manager in baseball as clueless as Geren is! Today's game is just another fine example of just how clueless Geren is on the bench. 

No matter how bad the product was on the field, people flooded to Wrigley Field to see...well...the field.

It brought baseball fans to what seemed like a different decade or even a different century to see a day game with an organ playing and no flashy scoreboard or advertisements to divert the eyes of those of whom have no attention span.

Granted, the crowd still has cell phones to do that, but the field itself would have no part in helping take away from the experience of the old generation of baseball.