Opinion

It has been an amazing quarter season for the Tampa Bay Rays. Many wonder if they can keep this up. But when you dig into the reasons behind the Rays success, this has been a few years in the making. And it sure appears it can be sustained.

The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the most home grown teams in all of baseball. Nearly every single player is a result of the Rays drafting. Take a look at each player and see how this team has been comprised.

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Last week, Kieran Darcy of ESPN New York said the Mets plan to have Murphy play a variety of positions at Triple-A to make him more versatile. Daniel Murphy's rehabilitation assignment has ended in Port St. Lucie, and they optioned him to Triple-A Buffalo. Murphy was placed on the disable list during the final week of Spring Training, and spent almost two months rehabilitating the injury.

In the past, older women were shunned in Hollywood. The Cougar phenomenon has seemed to provide a new appreciation for older women. Demi Moore and Courteney Cox are just two examples of women in their forties who have gotten hitched to younger men. Most of the owners of Major League baseball teams are in the later stages of their lives. Despite their advanced age, the women they have chosen as their life partners still remain attractive. Others are married to younger, attractive women and some have beautiful daughters. These are the women of some of the owners of major league baseball.

Brett Cecil has been making the most of his second stint, in as many seasons, in the Blue Jays rotation. He goes into tonight's start against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim fresh off a solid outing on May 19th against the Seattle Mariners. In that start he went 6 1/3 innings allowing two runs, earned, on seven hits. He walked just one batter for the third time in his six starts and struckout four. There was little margin for error in that start either as the Jays would hold on to win, 3-2.

Can someone tell me why Jerry Manuel put Ryota Igarashi (fresh off the DL) in for the ninth inning?

K-Rod is one of best closer's in the game, so why would Manuel put someone else in?

"He's quite a competitor," Mets manager Jerry Manuel would say later, a statement that somehow managed to contain both truth and irony at the same time.

(please take a moment to answer the accompanying poll re: MMM; thanks!)

Last Week: 3-3
This Week: at SEA (5/25-26); OAK (5/28-30)

So what happened?

The Tigers’ mastery over National League teams took a bit of a hit. 

Since 2006 especially, the Tigers have done amazingly well in interleague play. They’ve treated NL teams like redheaded stepchildren, annually.

Admit it Angels fans. You've been spoiled.

Since Bryan Harvey took over the role in 1989, the Angels have been blessed with a shut-down closer every year until now.

Harvey, Troy Percival, Francisco Rodriguez and yes, Brian Fuentes, have provided an unbroken, 20-year chain of confidence for Halo managers to go to the pen in the ninth.

That amazing streak of good fortune seems likely to be ending this year.

In just 11 appearances this season, Fuentes has already allowed four homers, blown two saves, and lost a game.

Mike Cameron is slated to perhaps come off the Disabled List tonight and enter the Red Sox lineup.

This fact alone is not likely to prompt cartwheels in the streets of Boston—but it's what the transaction would mean that is more important.

With Cameron's return, the Red Sox will be about as whole as they've been since the sixth game of the season when they began a four-game set in Tampa that's about as important as games in May can be.

It wasn't pretty, but rookie reliever John Axford helped the Milwaukee Brewers close out a 4-3 victory against the Minnesota Twins to avoid a series sweep.

Over the weekend, owners in two-catcher formats got a new name to ponder: the Brewers' Jonathan Lucroy.

With Gregg Zaun going on the DL, the Brewers recalled Lucroy, who Baseball America ranked their fifth best prospect heading into the season.

Splitting time between Double and Triple-A, he posted the following line in 2010:

122 At-Bats
.311 Batting Average (38 Hits)
Two Home Runs
16 RBI
16 Runs
Zero Stolen Bases
.349 On-Base Percentage
.418 Slugging Percentage
.350 Batting Average on Balls in Play