The Weekend in Baseball

Due to popular demand, aka a comment from my sole reader, today's column will be dedicated to baseball. The first two weeks of baseball season have had some interesting story lines. Detroit Tigers first baseman Chris Shelton has emerged as an offensive force, belting a league-leading 8 home runs. Not surprisingly, he is tied with Cardinals superstar Albert Pujols whose three homeruns in consecutive plate appearances were the difference in the Red Birds Easter Sunday thrilling win over the Reds. Despite a roster overhaul that has limited the Red Sox offensively, the one-two punch of Curt "apparently my ankle is fine" Schilling and Josh Beckett has been the best in baseball. Their 1986 World Series opponent and beneficiary of Bill Buckner's fielding deficiencies, the New York Mets, are off to a franchise best 9-2 start. If any combination of pitchers can lay claim to being more effective than Beckett and Schilling in the early going, its Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine. Not only have they found the fountain of youth, the Mets' rookie starter Brian Bannister has notched two early victories. Across town, questions about the Yankees pitching look very unsettled.

For the Bombers, the weekend series in Minnesota lingered on the verge of disaster. After the bats were silenced on Friday night, Jaret Wright only provided three innings on the hill on Saturday. However, the Yanks managed to rally off Twins ace Johan Santana and have a 5-4 lead for Mariano Rivera. As is the case with any time Rivera blows a save, a few seeing eye hits lead to two Twins runs and a 6-5 win for the home team. These are the type of losses that can crush a team. They battled back against a top tier pitcher, only to have their main guy lose it. Sunday provided an early test of their resiliency and the Yankees passed with flying colors. Against a solid starter, Brad Radke, the Yankees turned it on offensively. Backed by two Jason Giambi homers, along with power from Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano, the Yankees won handily by a margin of nine to three. Several things have stood out in the early going:

The Yankees need Octavio Dotel...immediately. Farnsworth and Sturtze have been very shaky in the setup role. After a slow start, Scott Proctor has been very impressive but does is not reliable enough to be "the guy" in front of Rivera.

The offense needs more consistency. They have been pummeling pitchers when they make mistakes, but in several games have not shown up. In the six wins, the offense has produced 64 runs. In six losses, they have managed a meager sixteen. The team has also stranded so many baserunners. They've been able to pile on in victories, but they have rarely knocked in runs in clutch situations.

What's going on with Randy Johnson? After pitching five brilliant innings on Thursday, he left the game despite reports of no physical problems. Johnson claims he was just "letting someone else get a chance", but that's not what he's paid to do. As Michael Kay pointed out on his radio show on 1050 ESPN Radio, the Yankees are not paying him 17 million dollars to hand the ball to someone else after five innings. He's being paid to pitch deep in to games and be the ace of this staff. Comments suggesting that he's getting others invovled are absurd and are of some concern.

Will the real Shawn Chacon please stand up? After teaming with Aaron Small to salvage the 2005 season, Chacon has struggled early. He's been unable to hit his spots and keeping the ball up in the zone. After getting knocked around as a starter, he came in relief on Sunday. Again, he got hit hard and had an early exit. With Jaret Wright struggling and Carl Pavano hurt, Chacon needs to produce.

Sunday's win was crucial for two important reasons. They showed they can battle back after a tough loss, and Chien Ming-Wang answered some questions. Wang looked shaky in his first two starts, but used an effective slider to record a career high 8 strikeouts to go with just one earned run. Known as a groundball pitcher because he relies heavily on a sinker, establishing the slider as an out pitch will be important. If he can support Mussina and Johnson it will take a lot of pressure of the struggling back end of the rotation.