The Baseball Book Club discussion

And so, finally, the Rays make it to .500. YAY! :)

How'd your team do today?

Tribe finally broke .500 again with a much-needed win over the Orioles last night -- no thanks to our setup man Mr Shaw, because Kluber deserved that win.

He did indeed. I watched his most recent outings, and man, he`s sure got game.
Mike Linn

Lost to the Royals...Willingham drove in go ahead runs for KC. Not a nice thing to do after getting traded!

Beat the Giants in a comeback 5-3 with a Cody Asche home run and paplebon save

Like that`s the only thing you have to get over.
Mike Linn

Harold wrote: "Beat the Giants in a comeback 5-3 with a Cody Asche home run and paplebon save"

Are they ahead of the Mets yet?
Mike Linn
Every year, when I was a kid in Brooklyn, the battle-cry was, " WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR "! Until 1955.....
Mike Linn

Wel now in Phillyland it's wait til 2019

That soon? Only if you are Amaroless
Mike Linn

The Yanks squeak by the Rays in today's game... 3-2. :(

The Rays will be shooting for the series win tomorrow.

So will the Yankees
Mike Linn

DIE YANKEES! DIE!

Er... sorry. I get carried away sometimes. ;)

Well, Rays no longer at .500. Yanks take the series. *sigh* That's baseball! :)

And as you well know, it`s gotta get bad , before it can get good again. And it will
Mike Linn

Yeah? How much badder does it have to get? Detroit came into town and took a series from us, too. It's off to Toronto to have the Jays beat up on us a bit now. Oh, goody! :)

Ooooh... hurts so bad! Orioles spank the Rays in their series opener: 9 to 1 Final.

I can tell you how much worse it can get, you could be a Rockies fan:(

haha always next year!

HAHA!

Next year. Yes, the ol' Devil Rays fans were used to hearing the every year until the new owners changed them to the Rays and brought ol' Joe Maddon in as skipper. Now if we could just get one of those bazillion dollar payrolls. ;)

Phillies r good this year yep

So, Toronto drops by for a visit at the Trop this past three days. They brought their broom, too. They swept the Rays right on out of their own park. :(

Today's awesome scoreless extra innings pitching duel between veteran Buehrle and youngster Jake Odorizzi was great... till the Jays finally scored one. :(

The Dodgers aren't in 1st place by very much. The Giants will past them soon. Maybe that's what it'll take to get rid of Mattingly.

That race should go down to the wire, and I think you`re right about the manager. If he doesn`t make the playoffs, he`s pretty done
Mike Linn

Lisa wrote: "The Dodgers aren't in 1st place by very much. The Giants will past them soon. Maybe that's what it'll take to get rid of Mattingly."

Tonight didn't help the Dodgers cause - not only did they lose (badly), but Ryu got hurt

I think win or lose, Mattingly is on shaky ground. Of course, if he gets them to the World Series, he has at least one leg to stand on
Mike Linn

Oakland may very well go down in flames with no wild card spot. Seattle is looking very tough with their pitching and T Walker back up. What a great race.
AND we now have 3 -18 game winning pitchers in the NL> Will any of them win 20?

Hey Harold, Oakland does have an easier schedule then Seattle. They're got the Rangers 7 times and the Phillies for 3, plus a series with the Angels. The Mariners still have to play the Angels 7 times plus 4 against the blue Jays and a series against Houston.

That's very true but they have the momentum and that usually makes the difference this time of year. Frankly I like all the teams posturing for a playoff spot so I won't be disappointed either way.

Frank Torre, former major leaguer and brother of Hall of Famer Joe Torre, dies at 82 | Big League Stew - Yahoo Sports http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big... (Share from CM Browser)

Fyi didn't get hurt during his lovely 1st inning. He had experienced shoulder pain while warming up. Guess he thought he could pitch through it, apparently forgetting that the Giants own him even on his good days.

Momentum is only as good as the next days staring pitcher.

Shit. Damn autocorrect always changes Ryu to Fyi.

At the onset of the season, almost all of us predicted this Giant/Dodger scenario. The loser of the division would make the wild card, etc. See how smart we all? At least your PC has autocorrect. Mine has auto- incorrect!
Mike Linn

It's true the mariners have a very tough schedule and no days off. But if the Angels clinch home field advantage they may not be as all out when they paly that last series with LAA.
But with King Felix, James Paxton, Chris Young(this year), Tijuan Walker and especially Iwakuma, I like their staff better than Kansas City

And with pitching as the absolute key, how far could they go ?
Mike Linn

As long as their arms hold up, they could face LAA in the ALCS

No Detroit, KC, or Baltimore ?
Mike Linn

I was thinking about them after I wrote this. You never know in a short series. Let's face it, anyone of them could win it.
Baltimore is playing so well as is LAA. I give up-I'm just going to cherish each game that comes my way.

I totally agree, unless there was a huge rooting interest for your team. Even in the National League, after Washington, there`s a bunch right there. It`s funny, how Oakland never came up in our comment
Mike Linn

What a shame. The one time Billy Beane goes out on a limb when he could have played it safe and he gets bit in the ass.
I think the Braves are done after today's loss, but you still have the Cards and Pirates. I am assuming the Dodgers and giants are in it

The thing about what the A`s did, they mortgaged their future by giving up some blue-chippers to acquire what they thought would give them a 7 deep starting staff. The Braves don`t deserve to be there, but the injuries killed their pitching, and they are just not hitting. The Cards are always dangerous with healthy arms, and I wouldn`t mind seeing the Pirates go deeper than they did last year
Mike Linn

Yes and the A's won't be able to sign Lester-poor move. I like the Pirates and would like to see them upset the Nats

For me, upsets are fine. I really don`t have a handle on all this, but if pressed, the Cards and Mariners just plain interest me, but the NL West my have something to say about that
Mike Linn

THe Dodgers got last nights game back - another blowout! (17-0 Dodgers)

They totally kicked butt!

There's gotta be someone with Time Warner Cable who's selling DVDs of Dodger games for the forlorn masses who can't see them.

Hey Harold, the Lester deal wasn't bad at all. Everyone thinks the A's offensive went in the tank after that deal, but they hadn't hit for a month prior to that. Beane knew there wasn't one hitter out that would change that so he added to his teams main strength. Now he can run 4 tough starters out there and he still picked up Dunn who's as much of a power threat that Cespedas was and gets on base more often. Also if your the Angels and you think the Mariners are tougher then the A's your going to try your best to keep Seattle out of the playoffs.

But Mike, Lester is a free agent and Cespedis was a few years away from that. I agree that their offense was struggling but losing Cespedis totally affected the rest of the lineup. It didn't help that Lowrie was hurt either.
I take your point about LAA trying hard to beat Seattle

Look at the stats Harold. Starting on June 27th a month before the deal the bats went cold with Cespedas, who is totally overrated with a .300 OBP. And don't worry about beane giving up prospects because lester will get him a top pick back.

A top pick could be 2-3 years away from making the team if at all. In the meantime????

Beane always finds them, besides look at all the top prospects that don't make it.