Hot and Cold - Fourteen Days in Major League Baseball

Well then folks, it has been a pretty pulsating couple of weeks since my last column and despite all of the excitement, not a massive amount has changed in the grand scheme of things. In the American League, the Angels are still dominating pretty much everyone in baseball at present, The Rays keep marching on in AL East and the White Sox and the Twins are locked in a real arm-wrestle for the Central crown. In the National League things are a little more open on the whole; The Mets, Phillies and Marlins are locked in a three-way battle for NL East, the D-Backs and Dodgers are fighting tooth and nail for NL West and the Cubs are doing a great job of fending off the Brewers and Cardinals in NL Central.

On the deadline day, very shortly after my last column the LA Dodgers secured the huge capture of Manny Ramirez which should really help fire them in the surge towards post-season, but then in true style, divisional rivals Arizona Diamondbacks hit back by capturing the power bat of Adam Dunn. These two are huge for these teams and this should probably end the slim hopes of the Colorado Rockies.

There have been two incredible occurrences during the last two weeks. In the series opener between the Boston Red Sox and the Texas Rangers, the Sox opened up a ten nil lead in the opening innings only for the Rangers to hit back and go into the bottom of the eighth with a 16-15 lead. Thankfully for the home team at Fenway Park, Kevin Youkillis spared the Boston blushes with a three run homer. Red Sox eventually prevailed 19-17.

The other pretty special occurrence was the Chicago White Sox managing to hit four consecutive home runs last night at home against the Kansas City Royals. The men who went deep in order were Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez and Juan Uribe. This was only the sixth time in Major League history that a team has achieved this feat.

Now then, let’s take a look at some of this fortnights hot properties:

THE HOUSTON ASTROS - Having now won eight in a row, the Astros are on a real roll now. Despite being pretty much dead and buried in the divisional race, the Astros have given themselves a smidgen of hope in the wildcard race, of which they are seven and a half games back. Given that the pitchers have found a bit of rhythm in recent times and the bats are getting hot again, there are stranger things that have happened...

BRAD ZIEGLER - The Oakland Athletics are having a pretty rough time of it in recent times but they have possibly got a real gem in Ziegler. This rookie reliever broke the record for scoreless innings pitched to begin a career on Tuesday night, this stood at twenty five.

Unfortunately for Ziegler his miracle run fell down at thirty nine and a third innings, but this record could stand for quite some time.

And what is not so hot in baseball right now:

THE USA OLYMPIC BASEBALL TEAM – Surely they should walk their way to the gold right? Not so. The Cubans are the team to beat in the event this year and there should be little that can be done to stop them. The American team is in a real hole because they lost to Korea in their opening match. Jayson Nix needs to try and get his bat going to aid the team before it crashes and burns! At the time of writing this article the team were due to play the Cuban national team. They need a bit of divine intervention!

JOHN BUCK – The catcher for the Kansas City Royals has been simply abysmal during this last fortnight. He has got just one hit in thirty three at bats giving him an embarrassing .030 average. I would expect more from a pitcher batting, which is laughable. Unfortunately the Royals don’t exactly have viable catching alternatives at the moment or else there would be no place for him in anyone’s line up. There seems to be a little bit too much mediocrity knocking around in the majors to counter some of the brilliant on display.

THE NEW YORK YANKEES – Now this is a turn up for the bucks. A team that you would expect to really click into gear at this stage of proceedings. Even having acquired Pudge to do the catching it seems the Yankees just can’t seem to keep a winning run going whenever they get on one. Having won only five games in the last fortnight the Yankees have really lost ground on the Rays and the Red Sox. We should know over the next couple of weeks whether the team everyone loves to hate is going to stand a chance of making post-season.

Well it’s been emotional but I’ll be here again in two weeks.

Good luck with all your punting.

Crafty Stan