The story continues in New York Friday night as Roger Clemens tries again for career win 300. His opponents, the Cardinals, hit the heck out of the baseball and will give Clemens all he can handle.

Jason Simontacchi has 15 big league wins, he came out of nowhere to claim a job in the St. Louis rotation last season and is flying his father in tonight to see this historic game.

The Yankees, Cardinals, Red Sox and Giants are falling all over themselves to see who will pry Ugueth Urbina away from the Rangers, perhaps as early as next week.

The Giants have the most to offer, young pitching, but would you give up one of their starters to get Urbina, a free agent this winter?

Anyway, the Cardinals can hit with the best teams in baseball and should put a lot of pressure on Clemens. Simontacchi has ice water in his veins, so 300 isn’t in the bag tonight.

Click below for more on the games today.

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I just finished watching the Giants win their last game in

Chicago. An unbelievable ending. More and more one becomes enamored

watching Bonds. At the tail end of a career he simply exudes greatness.

One of the unique features of his performance, day in and day out, is

that he doesn’t have a supporting cast which many great players have

accompanying them. He is, literally, the engine that makes this team a

winner. Without him, this is an ordinary ball club.

Fans, this perspective on the game by Ed is one of his best, click below for a truly enjoyable read! [Read more →]

Can the Seattle Mariners win the

American League West ?

The answer is: yes, if the

following …

By Amaury Pi-Gonzalez

Seattle, WA,

Click Below for Amaury’s Analysis!

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I haven’t seen the Red Sox or the Blue Jays live yet this season, but I have seen the Atlanta Braves and let me tell you they are the best hitting team I’ve witnessed this season.

Bobby Cox doesn’t have the arms he is used to either in the starting rotation or in middle relief, but man does he have the bats.

Ted Lilly gave up five hits in the first four innings he pitched last night against the Braves, only trouble was they were all tape measure home runs. Sprinkle in a walk and Lilly left the game trailing 7-1. When I see a major league pitcher get hit that hard, the first thing that comes to my mind is that he is experiencing arm trouble.

Keep in mind Lilly has pitched about 340 innings in his entire major league career, the A’s have him in the regular rotation (he has suffered arm miseries other times in past seasons), this year he already has thrown 77.3 frames. Lilly has given up 13 homers and if you look at his pitching lines the homers and walks are hurting him. A 3-5 record isn’t going to cut it for Oakland’s fourth starter.

Lilly’s situation bears close scrutiny from here on out.

My only question is why did it take so long to yank Lilly from the game last night?

Speaking of the Yankees, how about a no hitter in the Bronx thrown by six Houston pitchers. We all know Lidge, Dotel, and Wagner are the best combination of seventh, eighth, and ninth inning relievers in the game today, but a no hitter by Oswalt (a groin injury again), Saarloos, and Munro against the vaunted New Yorkers is too much to imagine.

As I’ve discussed many times, there is trouble brewing in New York.

Click below for more!

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As the story of the 2003 season takes shape, most teams are passing the 62 game mark, meaning they have 100 games left to play.

In the AL West with Seattle looking like a sure bet to win 100 games, it would take a 65-35 second half for Oakland to catch the Mariners.

The A’s have done it before and one can’t rule it out this season, but the local team should set its sights on at least 96 wins to ensure a playoff berth.

By going 61-39 over its final 100 games, the A’s should be right there with Anaheim, Toronto, New York, and Boston for the final playoff spot. I don’t see Chicago or Kansas City putting up 64 or 67 second half wins, so the top four should fight it out for the AL Wild Card.

AL Wild Card this morning:

New York

Oakland

Toronto 2 1/2

Anaheim 3

Kansas City 3 1/2

The Yankees released Juan Acevedo yesterday after he blew Roger Clemens game on Saturday. Acevedo should be picked up by someone rather quickly because he did save close to 30 games with Detroit last season, no easy task.

NL Wild Card

Montreal

Houston 2

Los Angeles 2 1/2

St. Louis 3

Phillies 4

Colorado 5 1/2

Click below for more baseball!

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Welcome home, Marty. It couldn’t have been a very pleasant ride back, after the double header with the Phillies. The Giants didn’t have a very bad homestand, altho, once again, they didn’t do well against a good team with a winning record, Minnesota. They were fortunate to come away with one win. Detroit is simply one of the worst teams conceivable. The 8th inning of the last game can only be described as “bush”. The homestand, in general, highlighted everything that we’ve been saying about this club since the season began. You are dead on when you say that the best thing they have going for them is the division they’re in.

Click Below for more right on baseball from Ed Stern! [Read more →]

The peaches are on the trees and soon will be in the stores in California, this is the time that the baseball season starts to take on a more serious look.

With the NL teams coming into the AL parks, expect he American league teams to play better baseball since their favorite toy, the DH is back.

Each day I’m going to publish the wild card standings because the Angels showed last year that the goal for any team should be to just get into the playoffs and then anything can happen.

With many teams feeling insecure in the division races, the wild card absolutely is something to keep in mind.

Today here’s how it looks:

AL

New York…

A’s 1/2

Toronto 2

Angels 3 1/2

NL

Montreal….

Cubs 2

LA 2 1/2

St. Louis 3

Philadelphia 3

And more teams can still get close, so it is too early to panic,

Let’s look at more baseball now below! [Read more →]

Check back next week as I will take a few days off to watch interleague play.

thanks,

Marty [Read more →]

Hello Gang,

According to an article in this morning’s hard copy edition of the NY Post, George is again on a rampage but this time it has surgical overtones which will be explained later.

The article mentions that in April the Yankees were 21-6 which of course was awesome. But in May they fell to 11-17 which wasn’t.

George is now in Cincinnati as a prelude to the Yankees interleague jaunt which will become magnificent this weekend as “The Rocket” goes for lifteime win #300 for the 300th time-this time against fellow “Rocket” Kerry Wood of the Cubs. The Yanks’ “Rocket” throws baseballs and bats with equal alacrity while the Wrigley “Rocket” seems limited to just baseballs.

Getting back to “The Boss,” his dissatisfaction was just expressed by the following, “We will get it fixed. Don’t bet against us getting it fixed.” I certainly hope he wasn’t referring to the neutering of certain 2003 underachievers.

Yours in Green and Gold,

Charlie in New Jersey [Read more →]

It’s always rewarding to read Amaury’s remarks. I just caught up with his most recent Giants analysis. I feel much the way he does about almost all of his comments. I think the Giants are going all the way as far as the division title is concerned. Can they go farther? Yes, if their pitching holds up. I have some disagreement with his evaluation of Moss and his comparison of Moss with Rueter. Rueter is invariably around the plate, When he isn’t he gets lit up. Moss is all over the place but has good stuff and gets away with it up to this point. I wouldn’t want him pitching with all the marbles on the line whereas Rueter does inspire some confidence. Frankly, I would much prefer seeing Schmidt out there in an important game than either of them. I agree with his comment about Feliz. He may be playing there sooner than expected. The big roadblock is the Alfonzo contract. Would Sabean enjoy seeing Alfonzo sitting on the bench? The Giants do need to do better against the American league than has been the case in the past, if for no other reason than simple pride and the obligation to hold up the National League banner. How can you allow teams from a league which shows such disrespect for the game by it’s use of designated hitters beat you? Amaury is right on about Santaiago. There is no way Dusty will forget about him when the AllStar game comes around. All in all, it’s always a delight to be exposed to Amaury’s thoughts and have a chance to react to them. That’s what baseball is all about, not only going up there to see the game but being able to talk with friends about what’s going on.
Ed Stern [Read more →]