Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

Alphonso Soriano has 14 home runs but is hitting just .237 with a .305 OBP. Those are not the type of numbers you want from your leadoff man. I'm guessing the slow start at the top of the lineup is a major contributor to the fact that the Cubs are 25th out of 30 MLB teams in runs scored so far this season... The Phillies have a similar problem at leadoff with Jimmy Rollins (.221 BA and .256 OBP) but that hasn't stopped the Phillies from scoring runs (they are 5th in all of baseball).... It should be noted that 4 of the top 6 teams in run scoring this season are from the AL East. Tampa Bay (1), Yankees (2), Red Sox (4) and Toronto (6)... Last night Jon Lester was awesome. He went 7 innings against the Phillies, giving up one run and striking out 11. There is no question that the Red Sox did the right thing in not trading him for Johan Santana when they had the chance... I like Joe Girardi as manager of the Yankees but I don't like Joe Girardi as a manager. Does that make sense? I think Girardi is prone to make in-game mistakes and he doesn't seem to do too well in relating to his own players. The Yankees are winning games simply because their huge payroll line-up is scoring runs in bunches. Joe Torre would have this team in first place but with Girardi at the helm the Yankees will scuffle for the Wild Card. And that is just fine with me...