Miscellaneous Thoughts
 
God I hate those late starting West Coast games. First inning I decide to just "listen" to the commercals with my eyes closed. Next thing I know it's the middle of the night and some 25-year old kid who is trying to sell his get rich quick scheme is blaring from the TV....  Not sure about you but I'm probably looking forward to watching the women's softball team in this year's Olypics more than the men's basketball team... Falling asleep kept me from watching the Red Sox get handled 8-3 by the Angels last night. Richard must be happy... Vlade Guerrero and Manny Ramirez are the most likely players to have a shot at the triple crown this year. Vlade has now dropped 3 points behind Manny in BA with a .339 average (good for 4th in the league), he's five HR behind league leader Manny, and one RBI ahead of Manny (and one behind lead leader David Ortiz)... Johnny Damon has quietly climbed into the league's top 10 in batting average with his .315... Johan Santana of Minnesota is definitely the best left-handed starter in baseball right now and maybe the best starter period. He got off to a real rocky start but take a look at what he's done over his last 10 starts... Can anyone explain to me why the Blue Jays are playing so bad? Their line-up and rotation are both better than decent but now they have lost 5 in a row and are the third worst team in the AL... Brett Boone now has 317 AB's for the Mariners. I'm pretty sure that if he gets to 450 AB then his 2005 contract that would pay him $9 million vests. Why are the Mariners playing him? His average and OBP are neck and neck with Tom Glavine's. Seriously. Trade him or sit him... If you knew that Travis Hafner would have more HR and RBI plus be hitting more than 100 points better than Carlos Delgado at this point in the season - then you should stop reading this right now and get your ass on a plane to Vegas so that you can start betting baseball proposition bets... Jason Schmidt is the best right handed starter in baseball right now. You could argue that he's been better over his last 10 starts than Johan Santana but can we at least agree that the best starter in baseball right now has the initials of JS?... Detroit is only 5.5 games out of first in the AL Central. They definitely can make a run at it. If they get close - then I think they might just be the baseball story of the year... The fact that Scott Erickson is slated to be the starting pitcher for the Mets tomorrow tells you all you need to now about their chances of winning the division...