So we are 1/3 way thru the season and lets go over the interesting stories, the teams and players that are playing really well or badly, and the ones that are for real.

Yankees Stadium is a Playground

Old Yankees stadium may be the “House that Ruth Built”, but if the Babe played in this park I’m pretty sure he would have hit at least 90 home runs. Through June 1st, New Yankees Stadium has seen 87 HR over 23 games. That’s 3.78 a game, the most by far in the history of baseball. Last year through 23 games, Old Yankees Stadium had given up 46 HRs or 2 per game. The problem probably is not the pitching since the Yankees went out and spent $250 million on pitching last year. So if you are playing fantasy baseball go out and get Mark Teixiera, Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon, because between those 3, we might see 120 HR.

Rest In Peace, David Ortiz

Papi Papi wherefore art thou Papi? The man that was Big Papi has been a shell of himself. Thru 47 games and 213 plate appearances Ortiz is hitting .186 w/ a .566 OPS and only 1 HR. The Red Sox might as well let their pitchers bat, because the output would be relatively similar, if not better.

Let’s consider that between 2005-2007 he OPSed over 1.000 each season and was easily one of the best hitters in baseball and the sudden decline is even more astoundng. He had a .877 OPS last year and it seems the wrist injury that he suffered at the hands of a fastball last May has greatly effected his mechanics and I don’t think he will be able to come back from this.

Silver-lining though, this may align the stars for a blockbuster Ryan Howard to the Red Sox deal sometime in 2010.

The Blue Jays, Get Ready To Fail

On May 19, the Jays were 27-14. As I said last update the Jays were in for a rude awakening as they had not played the Yankees, Red Sox, or Rays. Since May 19, the Jays are 3-10 and are a combined 3-6 against the Yankees and Red Sox since then.

Lucky for them they do not play either in June, and its only tough games will be 6 with the Phillies and 3 with the Rays. They better do well, because they have 15 against the big 3 in July, 17 in August, and 12 in September. I doubt they do much better than 15-29 in those games.

The West and The Central Are Bad

Both divisions have only 1 team over .500 and whoever comes out of the West is going to be destroyed by the Yankees or Red Sox in the first round of the playoffs. That team shouldn’t even be allowed in the playoffs, just let the Rays in. The central is almost as bad but it has much higher caliber players and much more interesting stories including Zach Greinke, Justin Verlander, Joe Mauer (Below), and Rick Porcello. The one hope I have is since the teams are so closely grouped in talent it will result in some interesting races in September. It’s just that they will almost certainly be meaningless.

I’ll see you in (the) Hall, Joe Mauer

Mauer, #1 overall pick in the 2001 draft by the Twins, has now arrived at the top of the baseball mountain. Since his debut into the game in 2004, he has always been able to hit for average, having a career .323 mark and winning 2 batting titles in 2006 and 2008. The one thing that was lacking was his power. All scouts saw it in high school and thought it would be almost immediate in the majors. That did not happen as he never hit more than 13 in a season and hit HR only 1.84% of his plate appearances.

Well this season has been a tad different. After missing almost a full month with a bad back to begin the season, Mauer has already hit 12 HR in 29 games, hitting a HR 9.5% of the time. One can say that this could all be sample-size luck, but usually if you hit the same amount of HR in 29 games as you did over a whole season, its probably not luck especially if you are the kind of talent Mauer is.

His 2009 line? .431/12 HR/35 RBI/28 R/ and that is only in 29 games. If he was healthy all season he could be hitting over .400 with 20 HR/50 RBI/45 R/ which would make Albert Pujols look twice.

If you want to watch baseball its meant to be played, try to catch the Twins/Cardinals series on the weekend of 6/26-28 to see the 2 best players in baseball square off.

I’ll end with my new set of projected standings:

AL East:

1. Red Sox: 94-68 (No Change)
2. Yankees: 93-69 (+3)
3. Rays: 88-75 (+1)
4. Blue Jays: 83-76 (-1)
5. Orioles: 73-89 (No Change)

AL Central:

1. Tigers: 84-78 (+4)
2. Twins: 80-82 (+3)
3. Royals: 79-83 (-2)
4. Indians: 77-85 (-5)
5. White Sox: 77-85 (+2)

AL West:

1. Angels: 82-80 (No Change)
2. Rangers: 82-80 (+6)
3. Mariners: 81-81 (-3)
4. Athletics: 72-90 (-3)

COME BACK TOMORROW FOR A NATIONAL LEAGUE UPDATE!