Preview/Prediction

NEW YORK: After starting the home stand 2-0 against the Tigers, the Mets will try to avoid a 3-3 split today when they face the Twins in the 2010 Interleague finale.

The Mets will send Jon Niese to the mound, who in his last start, got sidetracked by a rain delay. On Tuesday against the Tigers, Niese, coming off of three straight wins, held them hitless through the first three innings.

With inter-league play concluding this weekend, the New York Yankees head into Dodger

Entering the 2010 season, Scott Rolen was a career .283 hitter averaging 20 home runs and 81 RBIs per season. However, just as a fine wine becomes better with age, so has Rolen.

NEW YORK-- He spent eight seasons as a member of the Minnesota Twins. Now, three years later, Johan Santana faces his old club for the first time ever.

Santana was quite a dominant pitcher in Minnesota. He came up in 2000 and became a full-time starter in 2004, when he won 20 games and his first of two Cy Young Awards.

He was just unbelievable. He had one of the nastiest changeups the game had seen in over 50 years, and he was as big a strikeout pitcher as there was at the time.

The Dodgers have begun to shop options for pitching help.

Earlier this month it was reported the Dodgers had inquired about veteran aces Roy Oswalt and Cliff Lee. Reports said both teams answered "not right now" but the underlying theme was a denial back from the Dodgers to include first baseman James Loney.

Loney is currently hitting just under .300 for the Boys in Blue. He is a solid fielder with Gold Glove potential, but the Dodgers are looking for him to power-up, providing a more potent bat in the middle of the line-up.

If you are a true Chicago Cubs fan, then by now you know that this team is quickly heading nowhere.

Although they are still within 10 games in the division, the chances of them making up any ground is highly unlikely.

So what are the next steps this franchise needs to take?

It is simply to try and move veterans with the high salaries, and to build from the minor league system.

Correction: The Prodigal Son does not return.  You can thank the G20 Summit and the infinite wisdom of Rogers Media (owners of the Toronto Blue Jays) for that.

So, instead of a bittersweet moment that would have, could have, had some legitimate intrigue and injected greater interest into a jaded fan base, we get a downtown core that looks like 1942 Berlin.

This is an issue that's been beat to death already, so I won't add to the cacophony of discontent in this piece.  In the end, it would only be white noise anyways.

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To say it’s been a roller-coaster season for the fellas from Flushing would be an understatement.

Jerry Manuel’s firing appeared to be a sure thing six weeks ago.

With every passing day, the deeper we get into the baseball season, it appears the Mets are here to stay. No longer are we around Memorial Day, as we are now heading towards July 1.

With the Mets win last night, coupled with the Braves loss to the White Sox, the Mets now trail the Braves by .5 games in the NL East, and they have a 1.5 game lead in the NL Wild Card race.

For the 2010 season the Minnesota Twins spent big money.

Their payroll, usually closer to the bottom of the league than to the top, is now the eleventh highest in Major League Baseball at $97.6 million.

They signed Joe Mauer to an eight year $184 million contract extension that will land him among the top five paid players in Major League Baseball in 2011.

All this and a new ball park has the expectations higher than ever for this perennial AL Central contender.

Yet, there is a hint of concern in the air of Twins fans.