Opinion

Derek Jeter's poor start has been a hot topic lately. Today, on ESPN's 1st and 10, they even asked if this is the beginning of the end for the Yankees shortstop.

When a pitcher has a bad outing, you shrug it off. If you get lit up by the Colorado Rockies, you definitely let it go.  Even for a Cy Young Award winner, a bad outing is part of the game.

But when a dominant pitcher gets tagged for eight runs in less than four innings against the team his old catcher plays for, you know what’s going on.

Here’s a look at some unheralded players who played well yesterday.

Scott Rolen, Cincinnati Reds (pictured)

Rolen went 2-for-3 with two HRs and three RBI. He’s hitting .287 with 10 HRs and 27 RBI.

Zach Duke, Pittsburgh Pirates

Duke got a no-decision despite holding the Braves to one unearned run with five Ks in seven innings. He lowered his ERA to 4.47.

Gaby Sanchez, Cody Ross, and Ronny Paulino, Florida Marlins

Sometimes players from different eras can be compared accurately because their eras were similar.

Lou Gehrig and Alex Rodriguez played when offense was dominant.

Gehrig played 14 full seasons, 1925-1938, while Alex, whose first full season was 1996, is in his 15th full season.

Rodriguez has already hit more home runs than Gehrig and may break Henry Aaron's career record for home runs, but those facts should never be used to conclude that Alex Rodriguez was better than Lou Gehrig.

Perhaps the baseball gods have intervened. Perhaps he did it on purpose. Perhaps I’m making too big a deal out of this.

Derek Jeter has not scored a run in six straight games, which, for a guy who scores constantly, and did score a run in eight straight games earlier this season, is probably one of the longest stretches of his career.

I know that the Cubs' bullpen has struggled.

Through 45 games, they have combined for an ERA of 4.81 and opponent average of .251 in 119.2 innings. In fact, those numbers give the bullpen a little too much credit.

Carlos Marmol, Sean Marshall, and James Russell have carried the group. They've combined for an ERA of 1.97 and an opponent average of .185 in their 59.1 innings of work, good for almost half of the bullpen's total innings.

Without the aforementioned trio, the bullpen has combined for an ERA of 7.61 and an opponent average of .306 in 60.1 innings.

I woke up this morning and decided to make a change. Not the kind of change that would make my parents proud like getting a paying job or removing myself from their payroll, but more of a change that affects only me.

I expect to get a lot of well-deserved criticism from my father and friends for switching my MLB fan allegiance from the Chicago Cubs to the Washington Nationals at this point in my life.

On May 23, 2010 against the Minnesota Twins, Trevor Hoffman pitched game No. 1,000 for his career, coming on during the eighth inning in a 4-3 victory. He became the 14th player in major league history to accomplish this.

We then went back to our daily routines.

For a sport so focused on the milestone stats, it's interesting to see this one completely slip by. We have 500 home runs, 3,000 hits, 300 wins, and others. Yet, any milestone for games played is not really looked at as any accomplishment. It's a testament to little more than longevity, right?

So far, this season hasn't exactly been smooth for the New York Mets third basemen David Wright.

As of today, Wright is second in the National League in strikeouts with 58. Wright is on pace to strikeout 222 times, just one shy of Mark Reynolds single-season record that he set in 2009.

In 2009, Wright struck out just 140 times. If you think we as fans are the only ones confused, imagine how he must be feeling.

Wright is hitting only .261, with eight home runs, and 32 RBIs. It is safe to say that he's having an extremely slow start.

Anyone who has seen the Orioles bat this season knows how terrible they have been. Actually, one doesn’t even need to do that much; they just need to look at their record (14-30) and number of runs scored (26th in the MLB).

Amongst many things creating a shortage of runs is the lack of power in the O’s lineup. Now, manufacturing runs via baserunning and situational hitting can be improved throughout the season, but power can’t. Teams either have it, or they don’t. The Orioles don’t.