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This Week in MLB

by Marty Gabel

ThisWeekMLBAdmittedly, it was a fairly quiet week news-wise, but sometimes that’s not such a bad thing. Major League Baseball has already had its fair share of controversies this season, but as the last of this year’s interleague matches draw to a close and the mid-season All-Star break rapidly approaches, the divisions remain as closely contested as ever, with a few exceptions of course.

Boston has only lost five games in June, so it’s no surprise that they’re opening up a lead in the AL East. The Red Sox are now four games up on their Bronx rivals, and the Yankees themselves have found their recent form fairly mixed, though they still remain in contention with a healthy 42-32 record. Red Sox pitcher Daisuke “Dice-K” Matsuzaka is on the 15-DL with “mild right shoulder strain“, but you can bet that’s more about his 1-5, 8.23 ERA start. Meanwhile, the Yankees appeared to have an issue with CC Sabathia, who left a game with bicep tightness last week, but the hurler was quickly back on the mound to face the Mets on Friday night. The Toronto Blue Jays will be happy to see ace Roy Halladay pitching Monday after a stint on the DL, and the Tampa Bay Rays already welcomed back short stop Jason Bartlett who set a franchise-best 19-game hitting streak on Thursday. Both teams are still just a game or two back from the Yankees, but things haven’t been going so well for Baltimore, who now find themselves 12 games off the pace, and at 34-40, the only losing record in the division.

In the NL East, Philadelphia haven’t been having much fun, their lead at the top of the division slashed now to a minimal 1.5 games. The Phillies have only won two of their last 10, swept at home by the Orioles last weekend, before losing two out of three at Tropicana Field against the Rays. With a hospital stint for Ryan Howard last week, and slumping Jimmy Rollins benched for a couple of games, you can be certain Philadelphia will be glad to see the back of interleague play this season. The Mets have taken advantage of the slumping Phillies, taking three out of four from the Cardinals, and right behind them, the Florida Marlins have continued to improve with a sweep of the Orioles, and a series victory over the Yankees. However, Atlanta weren’t so lucky, losing a series to both the Yankees and the Red Sox this past week, and having to face their Boston foes once again this weekend.

Turning to the AL Central, and this week has been all about the Detroit Tigers. With a seven-game win streak behind them, the Tigers have now opened up a healthy four-game lead over the Minnesota Twins, who still remain struggling around the .500 mark. Detroit swept the Cubs this week, and last weekend held-off The Brewers, while the Twins could only manage one win out of three against the Astros, even though they rallied to take two out of three from Milwaukee. Meanwhile, the White Sox secured a series victory over the mighty Dodgers as well as the Cincinnati Reds to improve to 36-38 for the season, as both Kansas City and Cleveland continue to drift, the Indians having a particularly tough week, having only won two of their last ten games, as manager Eric Wedge continues to “not worry” about his job.

In the NL Central, it’s still St Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Cincinnati with just a handful of games separating them. The Cardinals had a mixed week, sweeping Kansas City, then suffering three losses out of four to the New York Mets. They’re currently happy to be back at Busch Stadium entertaining the Minnesota Twins this weekend. The Brewers meanwhile, suffered at the hands of AL Central opposition, unceremoniously swept by Detroit, before losing two of three against the aforementioned Twins. The Cubs were run over by the Tigers too, but last week happily swept the Cleveland Indians, even if it took three consecutive walk-off victories to do so. In the annual Civil Rights Game, the Reds couldn’t hold off the White Sox, but their record remains 35-37 and fully in contention for the division. Houston and Pittsburgh both refuse to die in MLB’s tightest division, on three- and four-game winning streaks respectively, and there’s still just five wins separating first from last in the six team NL Central.

In the AL West, Texas are still holding their own, despite relinquishing their lead in the past few weeks. The Rangers and Angels are pretty much neck-and-neck these days. Though the Angels lost two of three against the Dodgers last weekend, they rebounded by taking two of three from the Colorado Rockies. Meanwhile, although Texas were swept by the Giants in San Francisco last weekend, they bounced back to beat the Diamondbacks, and are currently making like difficult for the Padres. Seattle remains doggedly around the .500 mark, but Oakland’s young pitching staff is already beginning to wilt a little, as the A’s dropped a series to the Giants as well, despite taking two out of three from the Padres last weekend.

Finally, we’ll wrap things up with the NL West, where things haven’t changed too much and the Dodgers still remain the team in form with a 48-27 record. Behind them, the Giants continue to play good baseball even though they’re eight games back, and even if it’s unlikely that the Colorado Rockies will match their excellent 11-game winning streak, they still managed to sweep the Pittsburgh Pirates last weekend but succumbed to the ever-improving Angels midweek. For San Diego and Arizona however, things haven’t been going so well, and these two teams now find themselves a rather large 15 and 18 games back respectively, which could possibly be too large a chasm to bridge come the All-Star break if the teams above them continue to improve.

Well, that wraps up another eventful week in the MLB. Back next week with more news from the Majors.

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1 comment

Matt Smith June 28, 2009 - 8:24 pm

Great job again Marty.

The A’s are wilting, that’s for sure. Even when we score nine runs, as we did last night, we still find a way to lose the game.

The D-Backs’ bad form is a surprise. Obviously they’ve had their injury problems, not least to Brandon Webb, but I had them pegged as the team to challenge the Dodgers. We can already forget about that.

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