When the Minnesota Twins out-righted Phillip Humber to triple-A last week to make room for the hard throwing Juan Morillo, they took a gamble on losing the former fourth round draft selection. Out of options, Humber needed to clear waivers to remain with the organization.

Both Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera started their careers in 1995 as New York Yankees.

Mariano has stayed put and has been with the Yankees since the start of his career, while Andy has been a Yankee for 12 of his 15 seasons.

Both Yankees have impressive career numbers:

Pettitte has over 2,000 strikeouts, 217 wins, and a career 3.88 ERA.

Rivera sports an impressive hall-of-fame stat line of 485 saves, close to 1,000 strikeouts, and an astonishing 2.28 ERA. These numbers secure a spot as one of the most dominate closers ever.

When young pitchers start to struggle or even pitchers who have established themselves in the league, it usually begins with when a runner gets on base.

Usually for the pitcher, it's because they now have to contend with that baserunner  and the batter at the plate. Yet, the problem becomes when they become more concerned with that runner than on base than they are with the batter.

In a key moment in tonight's game against the Yankees, Ryan Sweeney came to the plate with runners on first and second and only one out.

The two runners on base were Kurt Suzuki, who hit an infield single, and Rajai Davis, who hit a solid single just under the glove of Cody Ransom.

There was a meeting at the mound for the Yankees with Andy Pettite on the mound, and up to the plate is Sweeney. The very first pitch is nowhere near the strike zone, but Sweeney swings at it for strike one.

...And now we return to our regularly scheduled broadcast. Yes, welcome back to part two of my two-part introspective look at Cole Hamels. So continuing our discussion on Cole Hamels, let me first start off by thanking the fine people at Cole Hamels Facts [dot] com.

The A's pathetic play continues and it is time to make some major changes. It starts with the manager because these plays are all based on him.

Poor baserunning decisions continue to plague the A's. This time it was Kurt Suzuki not paying attention to what was going on and running just on contact on a ball hit directly to Mark Teixeira for an easy double play.

Reds 4, Astros 3

On Saturday, April 4, the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Mets 9-3 in the second and final exhibition in Citi Field.  Not only this, but I received my first opportunity to check out the ballpark, which at about nine months ago I praised as the best of the two New York ballparks.  Was I correct? Let’s take a look, report card style.

Ballpark Exterior: A

Chien-Ming Wang, a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, has had an absolutely terrible start to the season.  In three starts this season, his record is 0-3 with an ERA of 34.50 and a 2/6 K/BB ratio.  Is this guy worth taking a chance on in your fantasy league?

Prior to the start of this season, Wang had been showing declining control.

2006: 2.1 BB/9

2007: 2.7 BB/9

2008: 3.3 BB/9

Chien-Ming Wang, a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, has had an absolutely terrible start to the season.  In three starts this season, his record is 0-3 with an ERA of 34.50 and a 2/6 K/BB ratio.  Is this guy worth taking a chance on in your fantasy league?

Prior to the start of this season, Wang had been showing declining control.

2006: 2.1 BB/9

2007: 2.7 BB/9

2008: 3.3 BB/9