Fan News

Some teams that are bad have a visible lack of talent.

They flounder around the bases and field, and lack the communication skills necessary to mesh together as an effective unit.

The Washington Nationals, however, do not display these characteristics.

The Nats have an extremely talented outfield, with Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge, and Adam Dunn patrolling right through left respectively.

Last night, Cole Hamels got hammered by the Colorado Rockies. And it wasn’t just a bad outing, it was terrible.

How terrible? Look at his line of 3.2 innings pitched, 11 hits, seven earned runs, one walk, and one strikeout and answer that for yourself.

And all of a sudden, Phillies Nation seems to be on the verge of jumping off the cliff. 

With a payroll that couldn’t even net a team two Alex Rodriguez’ (not that any team would even want one Alex Rodriguez), heading into Saturday April 11 games, the Florida Marlins lead the majors as the only undefeated team standing.

Kila Ka'aihue, while his name is hard to pronounce, is a very promising young player in the Kansas City Royals' organization.

Ka'aihue had a magnificent year in '08 when he hit 37 homers with a .314 average and 100 RBI.

He then found himself in the big leagues in September where he hit his first major league home run.

This spring some thought maybe Kila could make the big league team. But with a log-jam at first, he was sent down to Omaha. Some guys in Kila's situation might pout and see his numbers drop, but not Kila.

CC Sabathia makes his second start of the year today, trying to improve on his dreadful opening day performance. He worked on a mechanical issue with pitching coach Dave Eiland in his bullpen session and believes he corrected the flaw.

It was Sabathia's footwork, especially his front foot, that hindered his performance the first game of the year, so if he has his fastball command early, we will know it should be a much better game from him.

CC is 14-10 with a 3.40 ERA in his career against the Royals, a team he has started the most games against in his career.

Tyler Kepner, Yankees beat writer for the NY Times, wrote something in his game recap last night that completely coincides with what I’ve been saying all along about Robinson Cano.

Kepner and Joe Girardi hit the nail right on the head:

The Yankees’ pitching staff has racked up 22 strikeouts in their last two games, their only two wins on the season.

CC Sabathia and Chien-Ming Wang failed to strikeout a single batter in their first starts of the season, the Yankees’ only two losses on the season.

I have a hunch those facts will mean something for the Yankees in 2009.

The Scranton Yankees-AAA affiliate of the New York Yankees beat the Lehigh Valley Ironpigs yesterday by a score of 2-1 in 11 innings. Ian Kennedy made his first start of the year and went a strong six innings giving up one run on four hits with 0 walks and 11 strikeouts.

Dave Robertson had a strong two innings of relief giving up one hit, 0 runs, and three strikeouts. Brett Tomko pitched two innings giving up two hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, and had three strikeouts and JB Cox closed it out with a walk and hit but no runs allowed.

The San Diego Padres wasted no time getting their offense going against Giants' left-hander Barry Zito, scoring three runs in the home half of the first inning, including an RBI double from right-fielder Brian Giles and an RBI single from third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff.

Zito would only last four innings, giving up four runs on seven hits, walking two and striking out four as the Padres outlasted the Giants, and a 51-minute rain delay, for a 7-3 win at Petco Park.