Fortune Fame, Mirror Vain, Gone Insane

Easily, the all-star game last night was the best all-star game ever, and without question, the best game of the year. When you have bases loaded, none out, no runs scored situations, teams literally being down to the last man on the roster, pitching on two days rest, and runners being cut down at the plate to keep the game going until the 15th, that's amazing. Nothing would have pulled me away from that. Maybe the laundry.
Since all goals need to be revisited from time to time, this seems like an appropiate juncture to review my pre-season progonostications. However, I'm going to start with surprises of the year, both good and bad.
Good: Rays, Josh Hamilton, and the Cubs
Honestly, who outside of Coach Maddon and Don Zimmer thought the Rays had a shot this year? Here we are, mid-July and the Rays are a half game back in the East and 2.5 up in the Wild Card. Absolutely outstanding. Unless you're a Yankee fan.
Hamilton coming back from drug addiction to become an all-star and helping his team battle in the anemic AL west.
The Cubs, see the Rays, but add on not winning the series for 100 years. Oh and having your best athlete on the DL for a month and being in first with the most accident prone pitching combination of Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano and Rich Harden. Best of luck to those guys being healthy.
Bad: Phil Hughes, Dontrelle Willis, The Tigers, and Andruw Jones
Obviosuly, the jury is still out on this, but really, if Phil stays this injury proned, Yankee fans might start looking at the decision to keep him over Johann Santana as being a worse decision than getting Gary Sheffield instead of Vladimir Guerrero. Yes, Santana is all but destined for Tommy John, but with a known one-year layoff, and then reasonable improvement for the first little while, this has to be a better scenario than a Mark Prior-esque career path, right?
So, Willis came from Florida, and is now back in Florida. This time, it's the minors though. And he was supposed to be the innings-eating difference maker that got them a ring. Not quite. His failure has completely over shadowing Miguel Cabrera's lack of performance, and has been a benchmark for the Tigers' demise.
Andruw Jones- Ridiculous. How is he still wearing a jersey?
Ok, let's get to what matters, namely how am I faring at this not exactly half-way mark. We'll work backwards from the order I made the predictions.
Which brings us to the NL. Which still doesn't matter. Part of me felt bad for the NL fan as they were so close to winning an All-star game for the first time in over a decade, only to see them blow it. Ouch. I'll still say that the Mets and the DBacks are worth talking about, but now I have to add the Cubs and make this a three team race. Now you're thinking, but wait, the Mets aren't even leading their division, how can you still have them as a favorite. Well, they're a half game back of the Phillies. They have a new coach, a new mentality, and, most important of all, have seemingly forgotten all about last year's historic collapse. Oh, and they haven't had a lot of injury problems this year, which should bode well for the rest of the year.
The DBacks had a bad June. I've got to put that one on myself. I showed up when they were 8 games up, and I left when they were a game up. Sorry guys. My fault. By the same token, don't look for them to fall any time soon.
Lastly, the Cubs. They've been, well, dominant in the tough NL Central, holding the best record in baseball, along with the Angels. With Harden pitching well, it seems like the juggernaut is going to keep rolling.
So the NL predictions have no reason to change, with the exception of the Wild Card. Atlanta is not cutting it, and the people above them in their own division are not dropping any time soon. I'm going to take the Brewers, after the addition, and successful outing, of CC Sabathia. It'll come out of the Central for sure, just a matter of who.
NL Recap, original in parenthesis
NL East: Mets (Mets)
NL Central: Cubs (Cubs)
NL West: DBacks (DBacks)
NL Wild Card: Brewers (Braves)
Now the part that matters, the AL. West first.
Seattle, who I had slated for a 86-win second place finish, are all but mathematically elimiated from that. Bedard has been useless and the offense has been worse than usual. That recipe always cooks up a horrible season. Beyond that, everyone is over 500 for the season. I'm not as suprised at their ability, but I am suprised at how those three seem to end up with the W in every close game. They're like the Zac Morris of the league. Always count on them to pull out of the scrapes. However, removing the Mariners from the equation, which they have done on their own, I was pretty on going Angels, A's, Rangers. I'm pleased with that.
The East has been interesting, and is now boiling down to whether or not the Yanks will be able to pull themselves up once again by their bootstraps and force themselves into the wild card. The division is the Red Sox's to lose, and not just because of that thinnest of possible margins 1/2 game over the Rays. They're firing on all cylinders, with the pitching doing fine without Schilling, and Papelbon emerging as a competitor to Rivera's throne.
Rivera leads us to talk about the Yanks. (By the way, and I'm not the first to say this but I will be one of the more adamant supporters of this, if the Yanks make it to the playoffs and Rivera performs for the rest of the year as he has already, he should get the Cy Young). They're floundering. The pitching rotation is worse than anyone could have reasonably expected, with the exception of Mussina's moderate renassaince performance, and the Joba experiment has been a good move for the starting pitching, while leaving the reliever corp cupboard bare. What's more, the offense has been weak. For example, name who's batting over 300 this year. Answer: Matsui (.323), Damon (.319), and A-Rod (3.12). That's it. More? Ok. Who has more than 20 Hrs? No one. Not A-Rod, not Giambi, not Abreu, no one. (Note: this would leave them on pace for less than 40 in the season even if they were at 20). Yikes. Good luck gentleman, but I have to move you out of the wild card. The pitching, well, we've been over Hughes lack of a season. Kennedy didn't work out nearly as good as hoped for, and it has gotten so bad that Kei Igawa was recalled (and then sent back down) in addition to the Sidney Ponson sighting a little while back.
The Rays, surprisingly, and have a great shot to hold onto the wild card. So much so, that if forced to decide right now, I would say they do hold onto it. They are in a good position, with what has been so far very consistent pitching backed by quality hitting. That's pretty good, if you like winning and all. The Yanks, more so this year than others, are floundering, and worst of all, outside of the amazing #2, none of them really seem to care about it. They had more excitement during the all-star game than they did in the series against Boston a little while back.
The Orioles suck as expected, but suck respectably, being only three games under five hundred. So while they're some 10 games back in the AL East, in the NL West, they would only be a game back and tied in the loss column. That's all the ink they deserve.
The Blue Jays are treading water at best, but are no where near worth talking about it any sense. Look for them to unload whatever talent they have, if any, for future prospects.
All in all, spot on for me, with the only thing in error right now is the switch of the Rays and Yanks for the 2-3 spots. Doing well.
The Central has been a pleasant surprise for me. The White Sox's young arms have done much better than I expected, which has been critical considering the struggle of Buehrle at the beginning of the season. Also, Carlos Quentin and Jermaine Dye are putting up terrific numbers, while Konerko and Thome have quietly had good, not great seasons. Everything is kind of working as one smooth unit, and has put us in the driver's seat. I'm very much pleased by this. So much for only 78 wins this season. I am happy to eat crow over my claim that "simply put, the White Sox are not a playoff contention team this year."
By the same token, there is no way the Tigers will be winning 97 games this season. Who would have guessed how big a flop the Willis-Cabrera deal would have been? Just has shattered this team. They'll be lucky to maintain their 500 winning percentage.
The Twins will be nipping at the sox heals all year, another moderate surprise. Torii Hunter's replacement has been outstanding, and the pitching has not seen too siginificant a drop since Santana's departure. In view of those two losses, this really has been a great season for them, and they have a legitimate chance to win the wild card or even the division.
For the Royals, see the Orioles above.
The Indians, good grief. Someone please, let Travis Hafner know it's ok if he wants to hit the ball again. Seriously, in games where Cliff Lee did not earn a decision, they are 29-51. Not kidding. Wow. Let that sink in. It's reminiscent when Seaver won 21 games and his team won something like 54 games.
Recap predictions, again original in parenthesis:
AL East: Red Sox (Red Sox)
AL Central: White Sox (Tigers)
AL West: Angels (Angels)
AL Wild Card: Rays (Yankees) [Yeah, I'll take the sexy pick. They've got the talent to make it happen]
Obviously, these changes affect playoff matches, so without further ado:
ALDS
Rays over Angels in 5
Red Sox over White Sox in 4
NLDS
Dbacks over Cubs 5
Mets over Brewers 4
ALCS
Red Sox over Rays in 6
NLCS
Mets over Dbacks in 7
World Series
Red Sox over Mets in 6
Boston is still the best team taking the field this season. Obviously, baseball playoffs has a lot more luck and momentum playing roles, so who knows what will happen in October. Look no further than last year's amazing run by the Rockies. Ideally for me, it would be White Sox DBacks with the sox winning in 7 so I can get the most money out of DBacks world series tickets while still being able to watch the Sox win in game 3. Yeah, that would definitely be ideal. Word