matinae’s blog

Major-league thoughts fluttering like a knuckleball …

Obviously the Yankees/Red Sox is the main dish in the weekend buffet, but let’s not all gorge on the heavy carbs and empty calories of the sport’s best rivalry so early in the season, huh?

Sure, go ahead and have a helping or two of Boston/New

york, but require sure you leave a little room on your plate for the d’backs and rockies.

The re-match of last season’s NLCS offers a scrumptious taste of the present and future. Young stars line the rosters of both teams, highlited by 20-year-old Justin Upton and 23-year-old Troy Tulowitzki.

Arizona is especially stacked on the side of youth with 25-and-unders Stephen Drew, Connor Jackson, MLB homerun leader Mark Reynolds, Chris Young and solid starter Micah Owings.

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Hey How about those Orioles!?!

With a little help from Seattle’s bullpen, the O’s ripped through the Mariners in an unlikely four game sweep.

Amazingly the M’s blew SIX different leads over the course of the four-game nightmare, and to make matters worse, a guy named George Sherrill racked-up saves in three of the four Baltimore wins.

Those three saves equaled Sherrill’s total from last year when they were scattered in with four blown saves as a member of drum roll please the Mariners!

Sherrill was a throw-in in the deal that brought Erik Bedard to Seattle from Baltimore in the off-season.

Worse yet for the Mariners, Bedard was supposed to start one of those games against the O’s, but was scratched because of a hip injury. Ouch.

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I saw Frank Thomas scorch the basepaths last week, going from first all the way to second on a single that trickled off the third-baseman’s glove into shallow left field with the outfielders playing deep.

98% of major leaguers, (and likely more than 70% of little leaguers would have gotten to third standing up.)

It got me thinking: Who is the slowest player in baseball?

Thomas isn’t quite there yet. For my money it comes down to a pair of catchers; Toronto’s Rod Barajas and San Francisco’s Benji Molina.

So, for your entertainment, I have arranged a 50-yard race pitting the two speedsters.

Ready guys? GO!

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Isn’t the fact that the weak hitting team in San Francisco is called the “Giants” suddenly ironic?

Heading into the weekend, SF had hit just four homeruns; putting them on pace for a whopping 72 over the course of the season.

Seventy-two. That’s one less than the single season record by one player. A player who, again, ironically, got the unceremonial boot from the Giants in the off-season.

&nb