OT: Recap of MLB up to this Point

Submitted by Seth9 on
With Michigan Football kicking off in about 14 hours, the Tigers and baseball season are about to pass from a nice diversion while we wait out the summer to a virtual nonentity on this blog. So before Michigan Football officially begins, I'm going to do a brief recap for every team up to this point, and hope that you forgive me for polluting the Diaries with non-Michigan content.

AL Central
  • Tigers: Lead division, 12 games over .500 with only a +19 run differential. 3rd in RA and a solid rotation outside of the supposedly awesome pickup of Jarrod Washburn and a questionable Nate Robertson. Porcello and Jackson's emergence as starters this season saved this team, especially with the unexpectedly inconsistent and somewhat bad offense.
  • Twins: Mediocre, but in a playoff race courtesy of a crappy division. An awful offseason did not help here (Bartlett and Garza for Young, Harris, and others...OUCH!).
  • White Sox: Mediocre expectations, mediocre results, traded Thome, manager and catcher are both assholes, president is a fan, Buehrle went crazy for a couple games. That about sums it up.
  • Indians: Biggest disappointment of the AL (competing in the Failure to Meet Expectations Championship with the Mets) traded away the entire team at the deadline.
  • Royals: Sucked just like every other year.
AL East
  • Yankees: Slow start rendered irrelevant by dominance down the stretch. They are the favorites to win the series, which would be their first since 2000.
  • Red Sox: Great start rendered irrelevant by the rise of the Yankees. Now engaged in a tight Wild Card race with Texas and Tampa. Their aggressive deadline moves make missing the playoffs go from a failed season to a spectacular failure.
  • Rays: Returning AL champs nominally in Wild Card race. Generally overmatched by Yankees and Red Sox. Made one of the best moves of the offseason (alluded to already with Minnesota) and one of the worst (Jackson to Tigers in exchange for Matt Joyce).
  • Blue Jays: Spectacular start rendered irrelevant by the team's mediocrity. Wondering when Halladay gets traded (offseason, deadline move, or free agency).
  • Orioles: See Royals
AL West
  • Angels: Very good, as predicted. In a race for the division with Texas, with the Wild Card as a potential fallback if Texas goes crazy down the stretch and Boston doesn't.
  • Texas: WHY IS TEXAS SECOND IN THE LEAGUE IN RA/GAME. I'M PRETTY SURE THE SKY IS FALLING.
  • Seattle: First in the league in RA/G. Crappy offense costs the team a shot at the playoffs.
  • Athletics: See Orioles
NL West
  • Dodgers: Better than expected, and the expectations weren't exactly low. 50-game suspension to Manny made me very happy.
  • Colorado: Involved in a tight Wild Card race. Well above expectations.
  • Giants: Fighting for Wild Card. Best pitching staff in baseball suffers from having the second worst offense in baseball to back it up.
  • Arizona: Failed to meet obviously unwarranted preseason hype after vastly overperforming the previous year. Still, this season was bad for even modest expectations.
  • Padres: See Athletics
NL Central
  • Cardinals: Very good, picked up Holliday and got better. Pujols is awesome. Enjoying itself as the rest of the division falls to pieces.
  • Cubs: Fell to pieces. Milton Bradley=OUCH
  • Brewers: Mediocre as expected. Prince Fielder is still a monster (and an agile one at that).
  • Astros: Looked to be in a surprising fight to get into the playoffs, then fell apart as expected. Picked up Pudge before the season and traded him to Texas.
  • Reds: See Padres
  • Pirates: Decided that being in a playoff race was too much fun for their fans, so they traded away every good piece on the team. Continues to be the unending joke of baseball, only it's not funny anymore.
NL East
  • Philadelphia: Finally got a pitching staff. Pedro may actually turn out alright and Lee has been dominant. Almost certainly will go to the playoffs to attempt to defend their title. Best road team in baseball. Crappiest fans in baseball.
  • Florida: In a Wild Card race and 7 games over .500, with a Run differential of -4. Most overperforming team in baseball. The Cabrera-Willis-Maybin-Miller-various others trade looks worse and worse. They still need a new owner.
  • Atlanta: Making a run at the Wild Card after slumbering during the first half. Slightly better than expected. Pickup of LaRoche was a great move, courtesy of Boston, courtesy of Pittsburgh.
  • Mets: Lost their offense and starting rotation to injury, killing what may have been a great season. Nothing went right. Jon Stewart cries at night. That rhyme was unintentional.
  • Washington: See Reds No, outside of a nine game stretch in early August, this team has achieved a special kind of suck. At least they finally got a competent GM who took part in the feeding frenzy on the Pirates and got rid of the usually-injured Nick Johnson.
Anyways, there you go. Once again, sorry to those of you who don't want non-football diaries. I just thought it was worth doing before we fully switch over to football mode. And hey, at least it has nothing to do with the Free Press.
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Subrosa

September 5th, 2009 at 3:08 AM ^

...all I can say is that this team is one of the most surprising, rewarding and frustrating teams to root for of all time. If we had even the remotest hint of a competent offense, we would squash people (just like grape) and SAIL to the World Series as favorites against whomever we played. This is without question the best pitching staff I've ever seen. The fact that we are not running away with this division is sort of ridiculous. Paradoxically, the fact that we are even in contention given the depths of our offensive woes is equally absurd. Everyone (including me) thought going into the season the Giants were one of those teams that was a year or so away from serious competition. I had them pegged at 78 wins, and I thought I'd be thrilled if they reached that number. They're at 74 wins right now. They've somehow managed to simultaneously play way above AND way below their heads and find themselves contending in the most ridiculous and improbable fashion. The fact is that on paper there's no reason the Giants should be mentioned in the same breath as the Dodgers, Phillies, Cards or Rockies. Bengie fucking Molina is our goddamned cleanup hitter, and he has an OBP of .279. Let that sink in for a second. He's not just the worst cleanup hitter in baseball. He's the worst cleanup hitter in almost 50 years. We have a grand total of one (1) hitter that would start for any of those other teams. The fact that we're as close as we are is one of the most remarkable things in sports that I've ever seen. Ever. If you are a baseball fan, I invite you to give us a look. You will not find a more anomalous contender in all of sport, I promise you. But most relevantly: I could very well see UM Football in the same position towards the end of this year.

Joined: 08/16/2008

MGoPoints: 355

Viper

September 5th, 2009 at 4:47 AM ^

But don't throw anything at me. I was a huge Don Mattingly fan first in the mid-1980s and the team quickly grew on me (which was 11 years before Jeter's rookie season). Yeah, I can't stand bandwagon fans, either. Same issue with my NFL team. Marino was god-like to me growing up and the Dolphins eventually became my team. Haven't had a favorite player in any sport since my childhood heroes retired. Okay, that's enough gibberish.

Joined: 01/23/2009

MGoPoints: 35

victors2000

September 5th, 2009 at 9:04 AM ^

but I keep one eye on the 'Tiges' for sure. For about the entire season I have been somewhat lukewarm as to the Tigers making much noise post season, but they do seem to be making steam as of late. They are winning more, they are separating themselves from both the Twins and the White Sox. I'm still not sure if they stand a chance against the Yankees, but at least I'm feeling more confident that they might meet them. Good write up, btw...

Joined: 03/21/2009

MGoPoints: 12906