There is nothing special about this blog entry

Really, I swear, there will not be anything special about this entry :P

- A-Fraud hit a game winning grand slam to vault the New York Yankees over the Baltimore Orioles, covering a horrible performance by Yankees' pitcher Kei Igawa. Ok, so A-Fraud got his first clutch hit as a Yankee since...well...ever! Let's see if he can repeat the performance in October, when games matter. Oh yeah, it's not like he was facing Joe Nathan, K-Rod, or even Jonathan Papelbon. Am I supposed to be that impressed by a ninth-inning, walk-off slam against the Baltimore Orioles???

Ok, in A-Rod's defense, he gets way too much flak for his inability to produce in clutch situations, and good for him to get a clutch hit early in the season. Imagine if he had struck out in that AB; the NY papers would have let him have it for the next week or so. With this hit, A-Rod might have bought himself a reprieve for about a day or so.

- A week in to the season, and my Dodgers are 3-2, after beating the hated ones again today. That was a great pitching performance by Derek Lowe today--granted, Barry wasn't playing--and the bullpen looked pretty sharp today. A few observations, of mine, five games into the 2007 season.

- If we're going to get a bunch of HRs this year, it's going to come from a prospect or a trade
- Our starting pitching looks real strong (any time Brad Penny is your #4 starter, you can say that); hopefully we find a suitable #5
- Areas of concern: the bullpen, especially as the season wears on; injuries, especially to Nomar and Kent; outfield defense.

Now it's time for me to elaborate a bit on the rest of my MLB picks for this season.

- The AL Central pick was a tough one. The ChiSox are always a threat, with that rotation and their bats. The Twins are a threat on the two J.M.s (Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer), and that lefty that pitches every fifth day, whatever his name is. The Indians have been underachieving for the past couple of years, and Travis Hafner's nickmane--Pronc--is awesome. The Royals are...um...never mind. I picked the Tigers simply because I love their starting pitching--Bonderman, Verlander, Robertson, and Rogers, when he gets back--and the offense got a nice upgrade with Gary Sheffield, assuming he keeps his head on straight for the entire season.

- My NL East pick, the New York Mets, was not a tough one. Yeah, the question marks in the starting rotation are worrisome. Yes, the Braves are set to rebound this year. Then again, the Mets still have the two Carloses--Beltran and Delgado--as well as Jose Reyes and David Wright. They also have Billy Wagner at the back of the bullpen, which can't hurt. Even with the Braves' upgrades in the bullpen, I don't see Atlanta topping the Mets unless Tim Hudson has a Cy Young-type season.

(tangent #1: I glanced over at the Mets' roster, and it says the Julio Franco has 25 years of big league experience. I thought that was a typo for sure, until I remembered that Franco is nearing 50 years old)

(tangent #2: I discovered that my new Logitech keyboard has a character counter on it; consider it an odometer for geeks :P As of this <-- keystroke, the counter reads 15227. This might be fun; I might have to make daily updates about my geek-odometer!)

- The NL Central pick was simply a "I will not pick the Cubs" pick. So far, the Cards are 1-4, and they're making me look real bad. I should have picked Cincinnati, with that starting rotation of theirs. Let's move on.

- The NL West pick looks like a "homer" pick (a homer because I'm a Dodgers fan). The Rockies and Giants are probably not going to win the division, and I don't think the D-Backs quite have enough to contend for the division crown, either, though the prospects of facing Brandon Webb and The Big Unit is scary. I was thinking about picking the Padres to win the division, but I think the Dodgers' slight advantages with the starting rotation offense (IMO) should push them to the NL West title. Peavy, Maddux, Young, Wells, and Hensley is a very impressive rotation, but I think the Dodgers' rotation--Lowe, Schmidt, Penny, Wolf, and Kuo/Billingsley/?--is a tad better, top to bottom. If the two teams played each other in a playoff series, on the other hand, I might have to lean towards the Padres' pitchers, especially since Peavy is a true ace, and I'm not convinced the Dodgers have one (no, I'm not convinced Jason Schmidt is a true ace; he needs to prove he can stay healthy for the season for me to change my mind).

I never did give my wild-card picks, so here they are: Boston should win the AL Wild Card, and San Diego should win the NL Wild Card. Boston's pick is an easy one, especially if Dice-K continues to pitch well. I can't pick an AL Central team to win, because they will all beat up on each other. I also can't pick Oakland, because I just don't think they have enough starting pitching. As for the NL, I think San Diego will be able to hold off the NL Central, and Atlanta, also due to their starting pitching.

We'll see how bad these predictions look in a few months :P