Week in review

My apologies for not having more posts this week. Now its Saturday and I have some time to catch up on thoughts around the MLB this week. Here's the week that was:

The Braves are an enigma wrapped inside a riddle: For the moment let's look past all of the injuries they have sustained this year, including Chipper Jones' latest - fouling a ball off his face......on Friday the 13th. This may not be Atlanta's year. The Braves are second in the NL in both batting average and ERA, yet they only sport a 33-35 record. They have lost a record twenty-one straight one run games on the road. This is beyond impressive - its crazy. I have not counted the Braves out yet, usually these things even themselves out, but man are they a strange team to watch.

Let's give some love to America's wang: The teams from Florida this year are playing out of their mind. The Marlins are 30th in league in payroll. Their payroll is almost 1/2 that of the 29th place team in payroll. And as of yesterday they were 36-31. Who are these guys? They have shipped out Josh Beckett, AJ Burnett, Miguel Cabrera, Pudge Rodriguez, Dontelle Willis  -
(ok that was a great call), etc. Raise you hand if you are a baseball fan and can name 5 current Marlins. This team is scrappy, they have great young players, and they deserve a lot better than the 7 people that show up each night in Miami. As we move to the gulf side of the state the Tampa Bay Rays have lost the Devil (apparently, it went down to Georgia) Their pitching is solid, they hit, and they are becoming a thorn in the AL east's paw. Strange as it seems, I think their scuffle with the Red Sox was important to their season. They need to be taken seriously. They are no longer the doormat of the AL east. These two teams are squaring off in the best interleague match up of the weekend and nearly 19,000 saw the game in Tampa last night. That is sad. Let's hope these teams can rally the support from Del Boca Vista - phase 2.

Aaron Laffey is the AL ROtM (rookie of the month): I blogged earlier this week about Aaron Laffey of the Cleveland Indians. Aaron has been pitching out of his mind. Here at norunsupport.blogspot.com we were relieved to find out we don't share the SI cover jinx. After being featured on norunsupport, Aaron threw another gem this week after the posting. In the post, I linked to a vote for Rookie of the month and your voice has been heard, the voice of Aaron's 0.76 ERA for the month has been heard as well. He was named the AL rookie of the month. Congrats to Aaron who, to my knowledge, is the first Allegany Camper to win such an honor.

SHHHHHHH!!! Be very very quiet. The Tigers are showing signs of life: Well it was a great week for the Tigers, except for the Monday night ESPN game when I had my friends over for a housing warming and the "D-train" gave up 8 runs in 1 and 2/3 innings, but I digress. This week saw the Tigers split a 4 gamer with the Tribe, sweep the Chi-Sox, and take the first game from the Dodgers. This wasn't your average good week for this team. These were low scoring affairs, where the Tigers had to come back late, and get timely hitting, and solid pitching. It almost looked like a baseball team out. The month or so the all-star game is crucial for Detroit. If they can keep up their winning ways, take some momentum into the break, I think they could be poised for a solid second half run, because the White Sox are not the type of team to run away and hide with the division. Rodney and Zumaya are both back later this month, and Armando Gallaraga looks like a very solid big league pitcher. I am down right giddy, or at least as giddy as possible for a team still 7 games under .500

Enjoy the interleague ball.