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

Wow. After all those great pitching matchups on Monday, the season’s second day is kind of a letdown. Your best bet is probably the Padres vs Giants, and I’m not just saying that because my Padres are one of the teams. Here’s what I’ll be watching:
National League

Padres at Giants, 1:35 p.m. PT – Jake Peavy vs Barry Zito? Barry Bonds’ pursuit of history? Manager Bruce Bochy facing his old team? Tons of story lines in this one. If teams are smart, they’ll hit balls to left-center field all year against the Giants. Dave Roberts can’t play center, and you know …read more

I managed to watch parts of five games yesterday. Not sure what that says about me, but there it is. Some quick impressions:

Brett Myers and John Smoltz both were in mid-season form yesterday. Smoltz in particular was making guys look silly with off-speed stuff. He seems like another one of those pitchers that could keep going strong well into his 40s.
Adam Dunn is a very strong man. That second home run he hit to dead center on the first pitch from Carlos Zambrano was a jaw-dropper. It must be fun to get a hold of one like that.
Johan Santana looked …read more

I’ve finished up my second fantasy draft of the spring (my first is here). This is a 12-team AL-only Scoresheet league (we can protect up to two players that cross over to the NL) . I lost track of how many rounds we were drafting and shorted myself a bit in the pitching department. I’ll be able to address that in the supplemental drafts, though. This should get me through the first few weeks of the season:

SP: John Lackey, Ana; Jon Garland, ChA; Josh Beckett, Bos; C.C. Sabathia, Cle; Scott Kazmir, TB; Glen Perkins, Min; Thomas Diamond, Tex; Bartolo Colon, …read more