Augustine knew temptation
He loved women, wine and song
And all the special pleasures
Of doing something wrong
I said yeah
It happens, folks. Sometimes you get a baseball season with no interesting pennant races. Not a one. We have six divisions now, and I don't know if anyone is capable of overtaking any of the six current leaders.
The Angels, White Sox, and Cardinals have jumped out to such large leads that they have a chance to just cruise through the second half. The Red Sox and Padres have much more modest leads - however, both teams have the good fortune to play in divisions where the competition probably has too many problems to make their lives more than mildly uncomfortable. Only Washington looks vulnerable, but the likelihood that the NL Wild Card is going to come from their division kind of takes the edge off, for now anyway.
I hope I'm wrong. But right now, the Wild Card fight looks like it's going to be the most interesting thing to track during the second half. In the NL, Atlanta has a 3 game cushion on the Marlins. Another seven teams lurk an additional four games back. Out of that pack, if anyone can get hot and make a run, one has to think it would be the Cubs. If Prior and Wood get rolling...
In the AL, Minnesota has a bare one game lead on Cleveland, and an additional five teams are within six games of the lead. This is where the action is going to be this year, folks.
The semi-legendary Bobby Jenks is in the major leagues, called up yesterday by the White Sox (Brandon McCarthy went back down.) For those of you who have forgotten: Jenks is a fireballing RH who was drafted out of high school (Grade 10, actually) in 2000 by the Angels. He fell to the fifth round because he was generally regarded as Nuke LaLoosh come to life: a remarkable natural talent, but a young man with poor work habits and no self-control. He had a good year in AA in 2003, but lost most of 2004 to elbow problems. The White Sox claimed him on waivers and turned him into a reliever. He's been in AA Birmingham this year, and he's pitched well: 1-2, 3.73 with 19 saves, with 48 K in 41 IP.
At last, at last, at last - someone may have figured out how to pitch in Coors Field. Oh, probably not. Still, Byung-Hyung Kim has a 2.41 ERA in six starts at home. In his 8 overall starts, he has 39 Ks and just 13 walks in 42 IP. He actually gives up more hits as a starter (.274 as opposed to .256 as a reliever) - but he's been unable to throw strikes coming out of the pen (21 BB in 20.2 IP).
I'll be at the RC myself tonight, as the Jays wrap up the homestand. Here's the full schedule:
AL
Boston (Wells 6-4, 5.04) at Baltimore (Cabrera 6-7, 5.07) 7:05
Cleveland (Millwood 3-6, 3.18) at New York (Mussina 8-5, 4.06) 7:05
Oakland (Harden 5-3, 2.15) at Toronto (Chacin 6-5, 3.59) 7:07
Detroit (Douglass 1-0, 1.50) at Tampa Bay (McClung 0-4, 7.96) 7:15
Minnesota (Lohse 7-6, 4.26) at Kansas City (Lima 1-7, 7.58) 8:10
Seattle (Pineiro 2-4, 5.79) at Los Angeles (Colon 11-4, 3.06) 10:05
NL
New York (Benson (6-3, 3.75) at Washington (Armas 4-4, 5.27) 1:05
Milwaukee (Santos 2-8, 3.28) at Florida (Moehler 3-6, 3.16) 1:05
Los Angeles (Lowe 5-9, 3.96) at Colorado (Kennedy 4-8, 6.93) 3:05
Philadelphia (Myers 6-4, 3.18) at Pittsburgh (Duke 0-0, 3.86) 7:05
Chicago (Prior 5-2, 2.86 and Williams 1-3, 4.96) at Atlanta (Ramirez 7-5, 5.09 and Smoltz 9-5, 2.68) 1:05 and 7:35
San Diego (Williams 4-5, 4.14) at Houston (Rodriguez 4-3, 6.55) 8:05
St.Louis (Marquis 8-6, 4.11) at Arizona (Vargas 3-4, 7.78) 9:40
Cincinnati (Harang 4-7, 4.18) San Francisco (Tomko 5-10, 5.16) 10:15
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