Rays

Tampa Bay will finish over .500. They are a much better team than ever before. For example, they swept Boston for the first time ever. Like Jay Mariotti said on "Around the Horn" today, the Rays are 6-3 against Boston. They have an 11 game win streak at home. They are 15-5 in their last 20 games. It is not a fluke.

Originally posted by golfer1
Tampa Bay will finish over .500. They are a much better team than ever before. For example, they swept Boston for the first time ever. Like Jay Mariotti said on "Around the Horn" today, the Rays are 6-3 against Boston. They have an 11 game win streak at home. They are 15-5 in their last 20 games. It is not a fluke.

They are playing well and have a good team but with Toronto, Boston and New York in the division I would expect the Rays will be below .500 (even if they are much improved).

Originally posted by myteamtrulystinks
They are playing well and have a good team but with Toronto, Boston and New York in the division I would expect the Rays will be below .500 (even if they are much improved).

Toronto? LOL! Their offense is anemic. Why didn't you include Baltimore? They're much improved, more than I can say for the Jays.

I am not a Blue Jays fan but I think their starting pitching is excellent and despite a nice and unexpected start, I fully expect the Orioles to end up in last place.

Originally posted by SmookieP
Toronto? LOL! Their offense is anemic. Why didn't you include Baltimore? They're much improved, more than I can say for the Jays.

Watch yer mouth, Smookie. If the offense ever does decide to wake up, the Jays will be a force to reckon with. That being said, I don't anticipate that the Jays will be able to hold on given the losses of Eckstein, Wells, Thomas and Johnson but you never know. There are offenses who are just as weak who finished better than .500 (ie. last year's Padres).

The Jays pitching is absolutely lights out. They will finish top 3 in ERA and QS this year. I would say they are the second best staff in the AL next to Cleveland.

The Orioles are just terrible and I reckon they'll finish at least 20 games under this year.

The Yankees have yet to get it going. This season is almost like a crabon copy of last season when they started off very slow.

The Rays are for real. I also anticipate that they will finish over 500. Whether or not they get a playoff spot... that's another story. One thing;s for sure and that's that the wild card team will not be coming out of the AL Central this year.

Originally posted by darvlay
Watch yer mouth, Smookie. If the offense ever does decide to wake up, the Jays will be a force to reckon with. That being said, I don't anticipate that the Jays will be able to hold on given the losses of Eckstein, Wells, Thomas and Johnson but you never know. There are offenses who are just as weak who finished better than .500 (ie. last year's Padres).
sure and that's that the wild card team will not be coming out of the AL Central this year.

I agree mostly with what you say here darv, except, I am not going to shortchange Cleveland or Minnesota. In the east, those guys are going to beat the hell out of each other which could pare down their win totals. I personally don't see Oakland staying in it all season and I think Anaheim/Los Angeles/California (aw screw it...the Angels) runs away in the west. So I would say the wild card probably won't come from the west, but could come from either the central or the east. IMO.

You guys are all knowledgeable fellas, but you neglected to mention the REAL threat--those sleeping giants, the Detroit Tigers! Talk about what will happen when those bats awaken from their slumber...wooooo!

A quarter of the season is over and the Tigers are playing .400 ball and in last place. They have an old team and they traded away a lot of young players. The Tigers would have to play real well to reach .500 by the half way point of the season.

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
You guys are all knowledgeable fellas, but you neglected to mention the REAL threat--those sleeping giants, the Detroit Tigers! Talk about what will happen when those bats awaken from their slumber...wooooo!

What blows me away more than anything about Detroit is that Verlander is 1-7 right now. Unbelievable!!

Detroit is getting better, but like someone pointed out, Verlander has to stiffen up and be a leader on the mound.

I'll still take the D-Backs and Red Sox in the Series.

Originally posted by Derfel Cadarn
Detroit is getting better, but like someone pointed out, Verlander has to stiffen up and be a leader on the mound.

I'll still take the D-Backs and Red Sox in the Series.

He'll get there--just wait and see. And those "old" guys bats'll be thunderin' as the weather heats up.🙂

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
He'll get there--just wait and see. And those "old" guys bats'll be thunderin' as the weather heats up.🙂

They had better or another old guy named Leyland will be retiring again....:'(

Oh, dear. 😞 Rays beat the Marlins 15-2 tonight. I'm startin to believe in them!!!

You know, i'm going to Yankee Stadium soon. I bought the tickets in March and was quite disappointed the only team in town the same week as me was the Rays. Now, I'm actually looking forward to seeing it.

Now the Mets/Giants game I'm going to...😴

np

Originally posted by neonpeon41
You know, i'm going to Yankee Stadium soon. I bought the tickets in March and was quite disappointed the only team in town the same week as me was the Rays. Now, I'm actually looking forward to seeing it.

Now the Mets/Giants game I'm going to...😴

np

Yankee stadium has the All-star game soon.. they're tearing it down, so that should be quite an event.