Well its Monday and the first weekend of the season has officially come and gone and there are more then a few interesting story lines that have already popped up. Who would of guessed that the Orioles and Mets would all start the season 3-0. The Rays, Tigers and B-backs are all 3-0 as well but that isn’t a huge shock to anyone, except when you realize that the Rays swept the Yankees (which I loved seeing), the Tigers swept the Red Sox (which I also loved), and the D-backs swept the Giants (don’t really care either way). The Mariners are 3-1, which I know comes at the expense of the Oakland A’s, but still the M’s actually won games by scoring more then one run. When I saw the scores of Saturday and Sunday’s games I thought I was reading it wrong.
Now I know that over time things will balance out but there are a few things that this weekend is showing baseball fans. The first thing is that the collapse of the Red Sox last season may be more of a sign of where the franchise is currently headed as opposed to just a bad month of baseball. The Red Sox pitching is shaky and lets be honest outside of a couple of guys like Pedroia and Ellsbury the key offensive players are starting to fall onto the wrong side of age 30. The Red Sox age issues is nothing compared to the Yankees. Jeter is 37, A-Rod is 36, Ibanez is 39, Chavez and Andruw Jones are 34 but play like they are 40. The Yankees might make the playoffs this year but even that may surprise me a little. The Rays, and the rest of the AL East is getting better and going to make any playoffs hopes that the Yankees and Red Sox have a difficult path to take.
Seeing the Mariners starting the season off well has given me some hope that this season wont be as bad as the previous seasons. Now I don’t have any delusions of a World Series title this year, or even next year for that matter, but at least I can say that this team is competitive. Even with the extra Wild Card spot this year I don’t think the M’s will make the playoffs but I truly believe that they can have a big impact on who does get that spot. If the M’s are improved and can make the AL West a 3 team division and not just a 2 team division, then it could make things difficult for both the Rangers and Angels to make the playoffs. The division winner just might be the only team in the playoffs if this division starts to beat up on each other.
With baseball being played from the major leagues down to the little leagues this is a great time for baseball fans. Now if only June would come a bit quicker so that I can start enjoying the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes.