While we’re waiting for Kosuke Fukudome to decide what he wants to do with his life, we may as well catch up on some recent transactions, haiku style:
Nats and Yankees trade –
Clippard, Albaladejo,
anonymous arms
Cincy trades Buck Coats
to Blue Jays for Justin James –
who are these people?
Cards drop Taguchi –
they are So over that guy,
you wouldn’t believe
Padres sell Terrmel
to Japan’s Pacific League,
where he will fight ham
(Yes, I know, but don’t ruin the joke.)
Brewers sign Riske
to a big three-year contract –
seems kind of risky
(Ugh, they’re getting worse.)
Cincy waives Cantu –
I sure can understand why
they did that, can’t you?
(Seriously, this is terrible.)
Nationals sign …read more

Now for the latest installment of holding myself accountable. We’ve already looked at the AL West and AL Central. Today we move to the AL East, which is about as exciting to predict as the sunrise. Lessee, two guys with money enough for machine guns versus two guys with slingshots and another who has no clue what he’s doing. Gee, I wonder what will happen…

Red Sox – I had a 50-50 chance of getting this right, so stop with the applause. Oh, that wasn’t applause? My bad.
Yankees – Hey, look, there’s the sun.
Blue Jays – ¡Qué sorpresa! They speak Spanish …read more

Some stories write themselves:
The Blue Jays likely will examine how to prevent a repeat of a video baseball game promotion Wednesday night in which two fans playing live on the Rogers Centre scoreboard tossed two animated bean balls at Alex Rodriguez, who has been thrown at for real this season by the Jays.
Yeah, I’m thinking that’d be a good idea.

Somehow I got out of the habit of doing these. With the pennant races heating up, I reckon it’s time to bust out the previews again:
American League

Mariners at Orioles, 4:05 p.m. PT — How are the Mariners doing it? Ichiro Suzuki, Adrian Beltre, and Jose Guillen all are having decent (not great) seasons on offense. The starting pitching has been okay. The relief pitching has been pretty darned good. They score about as many runs as they give up, and yet, they’re a game out of the AL wild card. Felix Hernandez starts tonight, which is always a good reason …read more