Posada's shoulder holding up nicely for the Yankees posted by Cesar Valverde

Dateline: last season. New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada injures his shoulder. He ends up needing season-ending surgery leading to a Pudge Rodriguez summer rental. Fast forward to this season. There is no doubt his shoulder's gotten better. It just seems like every time I turn on the Yankee game on TV, some baserunner is trying to steal 2nd and the throw from Jorge is...........IN TIME! He's caught a couple stealing in last week's series against the Washington Nationals. I remember him catching somebody stealing against the Marlins. I believe it was Hanley Ramirez and if I remember correctly Ramirez was perfect so far this season until he got caught by Posada. Cool, huh? There is no doubt that Jorgie is back to form before the injury. Throw in a couple of home runs here and there and you've got yourself one of the most exciting Yankee players to watch. I love it! Every time he throws the ball to second and catches a baserunner stealing, it shuts the mouths of all those skeptics out there who think he's coming off shoulder surgery and he's an easy stolen base. It shuts the mouths of all those skeptics out there that think he's done. It shuts the mouths of all those skeptics out there that think the Yanks should have kept Pudge. Don't get me wrong I have nothing against Ivan Rodriguez. Congrats Pudge on beating Carlton Fisk for most appearances as a catcher. I have a lot of respect for him. He's just too clutch against the teams I root for and a straight-up dud when he plays on teams I root for. This frustrates me just a little bit. Let Pudge be a journeyman going from team to team making history. I'll just stick with Jorgie, the best catcher in baseball as a staple on the New York Yankees.

Rainy Nite costs Red Sox posted by Dodger

Boston Red Sox; Rainey Night Costs the Sox!!

J. Lester started last night for the Sox and has been outstanding, winning his last 3 games in a row, 2 were almost no hitters and allowing only 1 run in the other and 11 strikeouts in all 3 games--Sick!!! So I expected Lester to come out last night and do the same thing as he has been doing.

Lester would get an early lead in the 1st inning thanks to Youkilis' who hit a solo shot giving the Sox a 1-0 lead. And lately that would be enough for Lester to get a win, but not last night, because in the 2nd inning D. Uggla and R. Paulino would both hit solo shots of their own giving Florida a 2-1 lead and with the rain that's all they would need.

The starter for Florida was Nolasco and he has been up and down this year, but not last night after he gave up that homer to Youk that would be the only hit the Sox would get all night He struje out 5 and then the Boston skys opened up and the rain came down and this was just a sign that last night wasn't the Sox night. They waited for 2 hours until they called the game and since it was in the top of the 6th that's a win for Florida and a loss for the Sox with the 2-1 final.

So the Sox took 2-3 from the Marlins and I believe if the game wasn't rained out we still had a great chance to win, but some times that's how the cards fall, or  in this case--The Rain.  The Red Sox are now 40-26 in 1st place in the East and are up 3 games on the Yankees, sweet!!!  Next the Sox face the Atlanta Braves at Fenway Park for a 3 game series, but Boston weather says it's only going to keep raining so let's see if we can get a couple games in.  Tonight at 7:10 it would be Atlanta's Kamakami who is 3-6 versus Dice-K who is 1-4 with a horrible ERA of 7.55,.So weather permitting hopefully Dice can have a good game and Sox can start off winning against the Braves so let's go Sox!!!!  Sox Nation Here.

Scouting the Opposition: Florida Marlins P Chris Volstad posted by Cesar Valverde

The New York Yankees have a 3-game series this weekend against the Florida Marlins. One of the pitchers they could be facing is Chris Volstadt. An interesting little article in the MLB Insider section of the May 18 issue of ESPN the Magazine shed a little light on his background. His dad was a golf tutor to Hall of Famer Jim Palmer. This was a great help to Chris when he was in little league growing up in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. He had a very awkward delivery. As a favor to his dad, Jim Palmer gave him some tips. The result: Chris Volstadt grew up to be 6'8". He's got a killer sinking fastball that causes opposing batters to hit a lot of ground balls. Through the month of April, he had an ERA of 2.67. How's will he fare against the Yankees? Well, since April his ERA ballooned to 3.46. His last start was against the Cardinals. He gave up a career high 6 runs in 5 2/3 innings in the Florida Marlins loss to them. I believe if the Yankees end up facing him at some point this weekend, it's going to be straight up domination. If the Cards can jump on Volstadt like that, so can the Yankees. Don't miss out on this upcoming series this weekend.

One sidenote on the Florida Marlins: the consensus is that they have a crappy ballpark with a lot of rainouts. I guess it's not easy when you share a stadium with the Miami Dolphins. Football is more rain friendly than baseball is. Nobody wants to come to their games, hence one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Within the next few years, that's going to change. The city of Miami has approved construction of new stadium at the site of the old Citrus Bowl. It's going to have a retractable roof. That's going to mean more fans attending their games, which means more money coming in, a name change from the Florida Marlins to the Miami Marlins, and possibly a higher payroll. Ultimately, being able to pay $$$ for better talent. When this stadium is completed, I don't want to hear any excuses that the Yankees dominate them because of their higher payroll.

Florida Marlins' crippled by inconsistency posted by Matthew McCabe

The Florida Marlins' 2009 season got off to nothing short of a dream start back in April. Two full weeks into the season the Fish were 11-1 with the best record in baseball and a wide lead in the NL East. Sure it was early in the season, but it was the best start in team history and it energized South Florida with prospects that the franchise was finally ready to see its youth movement served with a strong post season run. Then the team hit a bit of a road block. After their fast start the Marlins would finish April on a 3-7 run, dropping their record to 14-13. At this point the team still had a winning record and had finished the month with a 3 game win streak against strong opponents, perhaps the 7 game slump was just a hiccup. The month of May however would prove it was no hiccup as the Marlins went from bad to worse as the Marlins went 9-20 and won back to back games only twice. So far in June the Marlins appear to have only leveled out as they are on a current stretch of 13 games in which they’ve won back to back only once and typically win one night and lose the next.

Where has it all gone wrong you ask? Everywhere! Inconsistency abounds on this team, which is to be expected out of a young team, but this is perhaps more than should be tolerated. The Marlins can literally be two different teams from one night to the next. No one particular part of the team is free of guilt in the matter, but the pitching staff bears the majority of the blame in this case. Ten different pitchers have started a game for the Marlins through 58 games of the season, three of the ten don’t have a win to their credit, and Josh Johnson is the only one to compile a winning record at 5-1. What was suppose to be a vaunted, albeit young, pitching staff with Josh Johnson, Chris Volstad, Ricky Nolasco, Anibal Sanchez, and Andrew Miller has deteriorated rapidly. Sanchez is currently on the DL after a terrible start to the season saw him go 1-4 with a 5.55 ERA, Nolasco is just returning from the DL and his season didn’t start much better as he compiled a 2-6 record and an ERA of 8.17. Miller had his own stint on the DL, but is a more tolerable 2-2 with a respectable 4.31 ERA. In fact, among the entire rotation, Johnson and Volstad have been the saving grace. Johnson has a 5-1 record, a 2.63 ERA, and 72Ks to his credit this season. Volstad has been good in his 2nd year with a 4-5 record and 3.65 ERA.

Rampant Steroid Use Brings Up Issue of Morality in Baseball posted by Chris Strickland

These days, going to a baseball game isn't what it used to be. Seldom will a pitcher throw into the 7th inning; the score is usually 7-6 or 10-9; and your favorite slugger is likely to hit one, if not two balls, out of the park. The game is shamelessly jacked up on HGH, and its obvious. The best hitter (Bonds) and pitcher (Clemens) of our generation used it, and more players are getting busted by the day (A-Rod, Manny). However, most fans don't care. They still go to the ballpark. That's because baseball, and pro sports in general, is merely another form of entertainment.

It's like seeing your favorite comedian perform stoned. You know he's on something, but you look past it, eagerly waiting for that one hilarious joke that'll make the bumbling and stumbling worthwhile. I saw Darryl Hammond do stand-up in New York some years ago, and although he was tanked (I'm talking, TANKED. He could barely walk up to the stage.), he still did a spot-on Bill Clinton impression. It's the same with sports - even if fans didn't approve of Bonds' off-the-field behavior, they still got out of their seats when he took one deep. The bottom line is, America just wants to be entertained.

Colin Cowherd said the other day we can't be moralists when it comes to baseball. He's right. We aren't going to catch every single steroid user. That's impossible, like Operation Iraqi Freedom. Since we can't catch them all, we might as well stop trying. If Bud Selig and George Mitchell continue this "we can do it" nonsense, there will be no star players left in the game, period.

And yes, I mean EVERY STAR PLAYER. It's naive to think Manny and A-Rod are juicing, yet the other guys at their level, who are constantly striving to compete with them, aren't. The one player who I can safely say isn't juicing is Ryan Theriot of the Chicago Cubs. He's thin and French. The guy plays by hustling. He's old-school. Besides "The Riot," everyone else is injecting their buddy in the buttocks.

The Sports Don's 2009 NL East Preview posted by Christian Mielcarek

The National League has four legitimate contenders for the World Series, and two of those clubs reside in the NL East. Along with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, the New York Mets and incumbent champion Philadelphia Phillies are the league’s elite. The Florida Marlins and Atlanta Braves should have respectable seasons while the Washington Nationals battle with the San Diego Padres and Pittsburgh Pirates for the label of most horrendous team in the league.

To read any of the other five division previews, click here.

1.  NEW YORK METS (89-73, second place in 2008)

The Mets and their fans have spent the last two seasons dreaming of the team’s first World Series ring since 1986 only to squander division leads and endure consecutive nightmarish Septembers. New York’s excruciating downfalls have been the result of a perpetually unreliable bullpen, and in an attempt to correct its dilemma, management has completely overhauled the back end of its staff by signing two of the game’s premier relief pitchers in Francisco Rodriguez (major league record 62 saves in ’08 as a member of the Los Angeles Angels) and J.J. Putz (91 saves over the last three years in Seattle).

There is just one member of last season’s bullpen remaining to greet the aforementioned duo, but the starting rotation stayed relatively the same. Two-time American League Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana (16-7, 2.53 ERA in his first season with the Mets) is the staff’s obvious ace and will be followed by John Maine, Oliver Perez, Mike Pelfrey and Livan Hernandez, who managed to bamboozle a five million dollar deal from New York despite a 6.05 ERA between Minnesota and Colorado last year. The Met lineup is potent top to bottom and is highlighted by potential Most Valuable Player David Wright, Joe Reyes, and the Carloses Beltran and Delgado. Delgado was an absolute monster in the second half of ’08 hitting 24 home runs and driving in 70, and second-year man Daniel Murphy is slotted between Reyes and Beltran furthering his chances for a big ’09.

No One Cares About the Marlins posted by Nicholas O'Malley

 Stadium talk highlights FanFest

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080210&conte 

Usually, the above statement would  not be too unusual; teams get new stadiums all the time- it's cool.

But in the case of the Florida Marlins, it means they get their own stadium-finally. It's not like in Oakland, where they share the Oakland Colosseum. No, the Marlins play at Dolphins Stadium. This isn't very publicized because, you know, no one actually watches the Florida Marlins play baseball since they're the least identifyable team in baseball.

Name some Marlins players. Dontrelle Willis, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Beckett- all gone. The only people that ANYONE has heard of on the Marlins are Dan Uggla and Hanley Ramirez, and that's only because of their fantasy value.

They've won World Series titles in 97 and 03. Not that you'd rememeber them, you didn't watch. Well, maybe to see the Yankees lose. But, after each of those World Series teams won, they became good, and wanted money, like all good players do. It happens. So what does the Marlins management do? Of course! They retain all their young, talented players and resign some of the veterans to keep the team intact.

Wait, oh yeah, they traded all those people that I mentioned. Whoops. Yes, because rehauling the organization is what everyone does after they win a championship.

What makes it even more ridiculous is, after the 1997 firesale, they won again! In the same way. Trading everybody decent on their roster for prospects that will eventually develop into solid players. Meanwhile, the team is absolutely unwatchable in the transition stages.

Marlins place closer Lindstrom on 15-day DL

The Florida Marlins have placed closer Matt Lindstrom on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained right elbow.Lindstrom blew a three-run lead in Tuesday night's game against Baltimore, giving up four consecutive hits after getting the first two outs in the ninth. Florida won 7-6 in 12 innings.On Sunday, he gave up two runs in the ninth against the New York Yankees before getting the last out in the Marlins' 6-5 win.Lindstrom is 2-1 with a 6.52 ERA with 14 saves in 16 opportunities. [read full article]

From FOXSports.com News for MLB

Yankees file protest after loss to Marlins

The New York Yankees have filed an official protest with the commissioner's office, one day after a disputed loss to the Florida Marlins.New York manager Joe Girardi protested Sunday's 6-5 loss at Florida because of a Marlins substitution mix-up in the eighth inning. Teams have 24 hours after a game to submit an official protest, and Major League Baseball spokesman Pat Courtney confirmed Monday that the Yankees met the deadline. [read full article]

From FOXSports.com News for MLB

CC Sabathia leaves game with apparent injury

New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia left the game against the Florida Marlins in the second inning with an apparent injury.A team trainer went out to look at Sabathia while he was warming up for the inning. He gave up a one-out double to Cody Ross, then Yankees manager Joe Girardi and a team trainer went out to check on the left-hander again before taking him out of the game. It was not immediately clear what was bothering him. [read full article]

From FOXSports.com News for MLB