Single-A: Greenville 4, Lakewood 0
in the only game today, the Claws were blanked by Greenville. Starter Ethan Stewart pitched 5.1 and allowed a run on four hits. Aaron Altherr and Gustavo Gonzalez each had two hits.
With the 2012 season officially underway, it’s time to predict how things will end up around Major League Baseball this year. Here are my and Mike’s picks and predictions: Continue reading
The American League’s 2011 season culminated in quite possibly the best
The Rangers have won the American League each of the past two seasons. Which team can beat them in 2012?
finish of all time – two walk off wins coming within three minutes of one another determined the winner of the Wild Card, the Tampa Bay Rays. The division winners were the Texas Rangers, the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers. In the ALCS, Texas bested Detroit in six games before losing to the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Detroit’s Justin Verlander took both the American League Cy Young and MVP awards — the first time since 1986 that a starter won both honors in the same season.
Will any team challenge the three reigning division champs? Who will take the two wild card spots? Find out after the jump: Continue reading
In 2007 the Phillies had one of the most dominant offenses in baseball, coming in second place in the MLB, as a team, in total runs, home runs, slugging percentage and on-base-plus-slugging (OPS). In addition, the Phillies had the 2007 MVP in Jimmy Rollins, as well as Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, both of whom finished in the top ten in MVP voting. However, the Phillies pitching was far different from their hitting, finishing 23rd in ERA, and batting average against, as well as 20th in quality starts, 18th in strikeouts, and a pitiful 27th in shutouts. All of this was even with Cole Hamels, who was an All-Star and finished sixth in Cy Young voting with 15 wins, a 3.39 ERA and 1.12 WHIP that was sixth best in the MLB. It did not take long for the Phillies pitching to catch up to them, as they were bounced from the playoffs in just four games by the eventual World Series runner-up Colorado Rockies.
The next year, the Phillies made major improvements to their pitching staff, adding key pieces like 2008 hero Brad Lidge and Jamie Moyer to help fill the team’s major holes. The additions certainly helped, turning the Phillies into a top ten team in most pitching categories and leading the Phillies to their first World Series victory in 28 years. Since then, pitching has come first in Philadelphia and this year’s group of starting pitchers is no exception. Continue reading
The wild wild west ended with a surprise victor last season: the Arizona
The DBacks went from worst to first in 2011. Who will challenge them for the division crown this season?
Diamondbacks. The defending World Champions, the San Francisco Giants, had their hopes of a repeat hindered when their rising star catcher, Buster Posey, went down with an ankle injury on May 25. The Dodgers had their ups and downs both on and off the field; Clayton Kershaw won the Cy Young and the pitching Triple Crown and outfielder Matt Kemp finished just one homer short of what would have been the fifth 40-homer, 40-stolen base season in baseball’s history. Off the field however, the team’s owners, the McCourts, continued their divorce proceedings and dispute over ownership of the team. The Rockies’ pitching struggled and they just couldn’t catch fire late in the season, as they’ve become notorious for doing in the past few years. The Padres, well, their fans may have been better off trying out for the team themselves — okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but 20 games below .500 is never good. For a team that lost the division on the last day of the season in 2010, the Padres let fans down by fading early on in the ’11 campaign.
Will the Dback’s youth be enough to stop a healthy, revamped Giants team? Is there a sleeper out West? Let’s find out: Continue reading