We wake up this morning and all seems in order in the standings out West and in the Central, aside from the Mariners leading the AL West. It’s early, but the teams we thought would be good all seem to be seperating themselves already: Detroit swept and is a game up on the Royals, St. Louis is a half game up on the Reds, Texas is a game up on the Angels. All is fine in the baseball world unless you turn your attention to the East wherein the sky is falling. Literally. The Yankees and Red Sox are three games back to the Rays, an insurmountable lead. The Braves dropped three to the Mets, who have reportedly asked fans to bring bats to the game in a promotion for their lineup. Fans are upset and for good reason.
The Braves: Fans are saying that Fredi Gonzalez can’t manage and that the team has already quit on him. I’ve seen tweets interested in how long of a leash the Braves’ manager has in regards to his employment. The Braves were shut out by a gimpy Johan Santana and somehow didn’t manage to score a run on Frank Francisco in three chances. All is lost. They’ll never score, or pitch, or make appropriate pitching decisions. Worse yet, they have the fat Livan Hernandez on the roster: a recipe for 0-162. (As I type this the Braves are currently losing 5-3 to the Astros after making 4 errors… add they can’t field to that list.)
The Red Sox: Fans “want to blow it up. Turn the farm system into something that puts even the Royals system to shame, then spend decades with a system that actually works how Theo intended when he first got here.” The fan is right . The Sox have no offense, or pitching after giving up 94 runs over the first three game set. David Ortiz is still fat. The team hasn’t had legit offensive force since Manny Ramirez left, and there’s no way that Mike Aviles is worthwhile. Moving Daniel Bard to the rotation was a mistake and the new “closer” can’t get an out in that role. The Red Sox clubhouse still stinks and nobody likes Bobby V’s sunglasses. The team is bad and very well could go 0-162.
The Yankees: The Yankees lost three games to the Rays. They can’t afford to do that. The Rays already have made their move for the playoffs and were a playoff team last year. Matt Moore will never give up a run and the Yankees didn’t even face him. Mariano Rivera can no longer get people out and I think his cutter may have stopped cutting. Pineda’s on the DL, Kuroda gave up 6 runs, and then the mighty offense was shut out by a guy who looks like he’s 14. Joe Girardi needs to stop spending so much time on his forearms and start inspiring his players. If George Steinbrenner were still around, this would never happen. The team lacks that sense of urgency and could go 0-162.
Life is rough in the American and National League East. I could make a similar case for the Phillies, but they are actually bad and the sarcasm of the other three cases would be lost.
-Sean Morash
