Yesterday marked the official start of summer and there's some symmetry with that in baseball as this is the last weekend of interleague play. I for one will miss it. Many people (old-timers and players) seem to hate it but the last time I checked the regular season is 162 games. The Yankees games are fun but how many times can you see the Devil Rays, Blue Jays or Orioles? Interleague play gets your team out there as you can see how they stack up against the other league's squads. Players always whine about how it's unbalanced but who can predict when a division will be as bad as the NL Central this season. And plus, there's a pretty big margin for error as you can still beat up on your league's crappy teams after faltering through interleague play. Everyone has ball-busting road trips, you have to figure it all evens out during such a grueling schedule. The Red Sox are 10-5 through their first 15 games against NL teams and they fittingly end it at San Diego-arguably the best team in the National League.
There's no clear-cut top team in the NL; the Mets have the lineup but plenty of pitching problems. The Brewers look pretty good but they haven't sniffed the playoffs in years. The Dodgers and Braves are decent but nothing special by any means. The Rockies have been the hottest team in baseball, 22-7 in the last month and fresh off sweeping the Yankees at Coors yesterday but will their pitching hold up? With the Padres ridiculous pitching (their team ERA is 3.05, .31 ahead of the A's and .67 ahead of the Sox, who have the third best ERA), they'll always have a chance. Even if their offense is still pretty pathetic (team batting average-.246, 2nd worst in the league), they play in a spacious pitcher's park, they have an emerging star-first baseman Adrian Gonzalez-and enough other decent positional players-the Giles', Mike Cameron, Michael Barrett-to do something.
There's no clear-cut top team in the NL; the Mets have the lineup but plenty of pitching problems. The Brewers look pretty good but they haven't sniffed the playoffs in years. The Dodgers and Braves are decent but nothing special by any means. The Rockies have been the hottest team in baseball, 22-7 in the last month and fresh off sweeping the Yankees at Coors yesterday but will their pitching hold up? With the Padres ridiculous pitching (their team ERA is 3.05, .31 ahead of the A's and .67 ahead of the Sox, who have the third best ERA), they'll always have a chance. Even if their offense is still pretty pathetic (team batting average-.246, 2nd worst in the league), they play in a spacious pitcher's park, they have an emerging star-first baseman Adrian Gonzalez-and enough other decent positional players-the Giles', Mike Cameron, Michael Barrett-to do something.
All three pitching matchups are beautiful, well maybe not so much on Saturday: Dice-K vs. Greg Maddux tonight, Wakefield vs. Chris Young Sat. and Beckett vs. Peavy (the two front-runners for their league's Cy Young) on Sunday afternoon. The old saying goes that good pitching beats good hitting so we'll see how these games play out. The Sox know how to wear pitchers out, so they've got that going for them. Coming off back-to-back shutouts of the Braves this week, the Sox pitching is also settling down after Schilling pitched a stinker on Monday at the Braves then went back to Boston and emerged on the DL-shoulder tendinitis. If the Sox pitchers can keep them in the game's-which is not too much to ask against this anemic lineup-the Sox will have as good a chance as any to put some runs on the board. Ortiz won't play all three games as they juggle around Lowell, Youk and Ortiz at NL parks with no DH. I have a couple friends in San Diego-easily one of the best US cities-who are going to all three of these games. Definitely wish I was in their shoes as this should be a fun weekend. It's the last time we'll see AL vs. NL (besides the All-Star Game) until the World Series.
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