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Everyone's on the board. Everyone's got a win, everyone's got a loss. So what lies ahead?


As all Bauxites surely know, the Blue Jays are off to Fenway Park to play the 2004 champs. They'll provide the opposition for Boston's home opener. The Red Sox will miss Roy Halladay, who is Toronto's best pitcher, and Ted Lilly, who for some mysterious reason seems able to torment the Sox at will. Meanwhile Boston charged from the blocks by winning 5 of 6 on the road. This looks discouraging, but that's as good a reason as any to play the games. When they're done, Boston will host Seattle while Toronto visits the 2005 champion White Sox.

If the White Sox are going to repeat last year's magic act, they're not going to do it with a jackrabbit start. Next for them is three games in Comerica against the surprising Tigers (any time the Tigers win five out of six is officially surprising) before they go home to meet the Blue Jays

Yankees fans are probably grumbling already, because it's what they do - but remember, they lost 19 of the first 30 games last year, and still won the division. There's a good chance that this week's visit from Kansas City will change the mood.

The team looking down the barrel at hard times are the Twins. Which is what you have to expect when you expect Tony Batista to solve your run-scoring problems. The Twins dropped five of their first six, they've got Oakland coming to town next , and then they have to venture into the Bronx. They might find themselves in a deep hole by this time next week..

In the Other League - well I have to note, with pride swelling in my breast, that the three NL teams I picked to win their division are all sitting in fifth place. They have combined to win 5 games while losing 12. I can pick 'em.

The Brewers are off to a nice start, and Toronto fans have lots of Old Friends to follow. Dave Bush and Gabe Gross both had a memorable first week in Milwaukee, and we're all happy for them. I'm sure the Brewers are improved, but they're not all that good.. They went 5-1 despite scoring just 23 runs in their six games. But it was a good week for them. They'll take it

Speaking of having a good week.... the following is not good news for Carlos Pena.

PLAYER          TEAM    AB   R   H  2B  3B   HR   RBI   SB  CS  BB   BAV    OBP    SLG    OPS
Chris Shelton Det 24 7 14 2 2 5 9 0 0 1 .583 .615 1.458 2.074
And, leading the majors in strikeouts: Chris Capuano and Brad Penny. Make a note of the date and time. We are unlikely to see that confluence of events again in our lifetimes.

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Mike Green - Monday, April 10 2006 @ 09:29 AM EDT (#144801) #

Shelton was a Rule 5 draftee by the Tigers from the Pirates.  If you want to get a Pirates fan mad, ask them about it.  Anyways, his success might cause other GMs to re-think the strategy of effectively ignoring this draft.  There's more than LOOGYs in them thar bushes.

robertdudek - Monday, April 10 2006 @ 10:38 AM EDT (#144809) #
Carlos Pena cleared waivers just before the start of the season, and he is a free agent now. His price tage (over 2 million) likely deterred anyone from claiming him, but now any team can sign him for the major league minumum (with the Tigers presumably on the hook for the rest).

I'm a little surprised the Red Sox haven't signed him.

In other news, though he played 1 game in AAA in 2002, it looks like Canadian catcher Maxim St. Pierre has finally made the jump from AA to AAA. With his defensive skills, he wouldn't be the worst backup catcher in major league history (I'd take him over Huckaby).


 
Mike Green - Monday, April 10 2006 @ 08:34 PM EDT (#144871) #

Another reason to love THT is the new 3-year player stats. Here is Shea Hillenbrand's.  Nice. Between this, and the 3 year situational and platoon splits available on espn.com, we now have a nice easily accessible picture of a player's offensive skills.

China fan - Tuesday, April 11 2006 @ 02:46 AM EDT (#144885) #

      I know it's only six games, but the Jays are leading the entire league with a .336 team batting average.   They are averaging 5.67 runs scored per game, which would put them on pace for 918 runs in the season, compared to 775 runs last year and compared to a league average of 771 runs last year.   Of course 50 per cent of their games so far were against Tampa Bay, which won't continue for the whole season.....

     On the negative side, the Jays are averaging 6.17 runs allowed per game.  Let's hope that the pitching reverts to last year's strong performances, while the offence does not revert to last year.

     Here's a link to a Canadian Press story which mentions the league-leading batting average:

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Baseball/MLB/Toronto/2006/04/10/1528651-cp.html

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