Week 6

more coming.

Tampa suffered through injuries and poor play in week 6. In the first series they were swept by their soon to be division rival seattle mariners and then were swept by also soon to be division rival texas rangers. tampa is looking forward to next week and getting a shot at the already hated mariners. the obvious issue for tampa has to have been the offense, partly due to injuries, but still scored 4 runs or fewer in every game averaging only 2 1/3 runs per game. they are now 5 games out of the division and 4 out of the wild card.

4-2 week for the 1st place Orioles, although the evil Yankees are right on their tail.

Game 1 was another solid outing by Livan Hernandez, who went 8IP with 2 ER. Newly acquired Ryan Howard thrilled the crowd in his home debut by knocking in 3 RBIs with 2 Home Runs. Newly acquired catcher Rod Barajas got off to a nice start as well with 2 singles. His first game with the club happened to be against Scott Olsen, who is a lefty, meaning Barajas was in the lineup. Game two was a nice come from behind win for the Orioles. They trailed by 3 early on, but scored 1 in the 4th, 2 in the 5th, and 3 in the bottom of the 8th for the win. Game 3 was a 5 hit per team pitchers duel, ending with the Orioles winning 2-1 behind the pitching of #5 starter Travis Chick. Offensive heroes were Ryan Howard and Jeremy Hermida, who each had solo home runs.

The sereis at Cleveland didn't go quite as well. Game one went to 13 innings, with the O's being on the losing end of a final score of 4-3. In game 2 Jerome Williams trailed early, but 3 runs in the 7th put the O's up 4-3, and Aardsma came in and pitched 3 scoreless innings to close things out. In his 3 innings he allowed 1 baserunner. Offensiely Hermida continued to heat up, as he homered, scored twice, knocked in two runs, and walked once. Game 3 was another extra inning loss for the O's. The game was tied 9-9 after the 7th inning, and stayed that way until the Indians scored in the bottom of the 12th. This was another big game for Ryan Howard, as he went 2-6 with 2 HR and 5 RBI. Also lending in with big offensive games were Trot Nixon with 4 hits, and Luke Scott and Ronny Paulino each with 3 hits.

Another poor week by the Brewers, outclased in a 0-3 performance v the Mats but came back to go 2-2 against the Gaints.
I feel things are starting to look up though. The crowds are comming back and I'm getting the hang of things now.
On the down side our pitching roster after a few injuries is bare to the bone.
looking forward to some competitave games v the Diamondbacks and Angels next week.

The Rangers began playing better ball this week taking on Boston and Tampa Bay. The Rangers pitching started turning things around this week leading the way to taking 2 of 3 games from the Red Sox and a sweep of Tampa Bay. Texas has now won 5 games in a row, and hopefully this is a sign of things to come. I am disappointed with how the Rangers started off the season, but they are playing better beginning this last week. With the pending trade of Travis Hafner coming into the Rangers lineup, the offense should be strengthened and the team will look to it's pitching staff to help carry the load. This next week the Rangers take on the Red Sox and the strong Giants team.

Cubs swept the Giants in SF and took 2 of 3 from Houston so it was a very succesful week. The Cubs are now averaging more than 7 runs per game. How long can they keep this up?