Now everything in the NL West is up for grabs; the Dodgers are no longer a lock-----Justin Turner trimmed his beard! Now the baseball gods will seek slumpy vengeance....
Now everything in the NL West is up for grabs; the Dodgers are no longer a lock-----Justin Turner trimmed his beard! Now the baseball gods will seek slumpy vengeance....
My Red Sox let Jackie Bradley sign with the Brewers and I'm really not seeing much hope that Boston will be any better than the trainwreck they were last year.
By the way, former Red Sox (among other teams) pitcher Rheal Cormier has passed away. I believe it was from pancreatic cancer.
Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor CD Review
Beth Hart February 23rd, 2017 Boston, MA Concert Review
"I can't complain. I got to be Jim Morrison for the first half of my life, and Ward Cleaver for the second half." - Warren Zevon.
THen he died from the same thing that my dad did, 7 years ago today...
Anyway though I can't wait for the season to start, weekends are boring without baseball and/or football to watch...
How many balls does a team allocate to each game? Do they ever run out? What then?
Wow, Shohei Otahni has decided he's Babe Ruth. So....he can hit like hell now, but I'm waiting on his pitching. It's supposedly a lot better than his disastrous attempts last year, but I think his slider is not dialed in yet.
In Spring training at least, Angel's star Otahni is in beast mode. The other day, he was clocking over 101 MPH on his fastball, while beating that poor ball into submission as a batter. He's already got 4 HRs in Spring training, two of them monster 460 foot plus HRs. Sadly for the Angels, he's about the only thing working for them. Trout and Redon seem to be in slumps, and well, they've really got nobody else. About that slider....he's got it dialed in, it seems.
The Dodgers....seem to be the Dodgers. Probably the preseason favorite to repeat as Series champs. SD looks intriguing, as do the Jays, the Mets, the Phils, and the Braves.
I can't wait for the season to begin, it's only like a week away now...
So, it's hard to handicap this one, there's question marks on a lot of teams in the running. For example, the odds on favorite for the Series title, is the Dodgers. A week ago or so, it seemed very certain. Now....Kershaw is....slumping, sent to B games to tune things up. IIRC, he lost a lot of velocity suddenly. Could be trouble for them, whether it's just a slump, or if it's indicating some injury.
The Spring games have been fine....but like you guys, I can't wait for the real thing.
My teams to watch are:
The Dodgers
Padres
Braves
Mets
Phillies
Rays (I still don't know how they did it last year)
Yanks
Jays
Maybe some others I can't recall because it's 2:30 in the morning...
Everyone's got the Dodgers but the Padres look like world beaters.
And ... the Mariners don't look like hot garbage so far.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
You say that....but....Tattis Jr. just pulled himself out of a game with some injury apparent to his catching shoulder, which should also hurt his swing. Though I'd like to see them make a good run at the Dodgers to see if the Dodgers could have won in a regular length season, given their biggest problem has been Roberts overpitching his staff, especially Kershaw. Maybe they're a bit sad now they traded Ryu away for magic beans I suspect, a guy who was runner up and should have won Cy Young two years ago.
Better now to get healthy then push through and miss the whole season. That being said, Tatis himself said, "In season, I would probably go." I wouldn't read too much into spring training injury pulls unless they are rolling on the ground. Some guys don't have their pliability and flexibility up to snuff yet.
I'm sure he'll be fine.
Famous last words right? The Padres fans can blame me if Tatis goes down this year.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
The Padres are betting everything on a few players, if they don't perform then they're in SERIOUS trouble given the contracts attached to said players...I think that the Cardinals could win the NL Central given that Cubs seem to be blowing up and trading away much of the team and such...
Going into the new season in NL East, the Braves look to be the class of the division, of course, all eyes will be on the Mets after the moves they made in the offseason, including their trade for SS Francisco Lindor. The youthful Marlins are up and comers in the division while my Phillies will be hard pressed to be a playoff contender. Lastly, the Nats, was their 2020 last place finish a blip on the radar? Guess we'll find out.
Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!