Setting the world on fire

Well, nobody in professional baseball right now is setting the world on fire. The Philadelphia Phillies are coming closest, winning 8 of their last 10. Currently their winning streak stands at 7. Unfortunately for Patrick, this is the division in which his Braves play. The Braves are 4 and 6 in their last 10 games, with last night's action against the Cubs postponed due to rain.

Boy, there've been a bunch of rainouts, delayed and postponed games this year, haven't there? The Astros have been involved in two that I can recall off of the top of my head ... one against the Chicago Cubs that'll be made up either this month or next, I forget which ... the other against the Nationals that'll be completed when we next meet. (There's just an inning or two to go in that game, I think. It could have been called. Wonder why it wasn't?)

My National League Central has been ho-hum, tending to mediocrity, these past several days. Only the Astros 4-game winning streak (snapped last night by the Rockies) enabled them to keep the tied-for-1st-place Brewers and Cardinals within eyesight. Interestingly enough, the American League's Central division looks very similar to ours, with just 7 games separating the first and last place teams.

Four of the teams in our division are scheduled to play head to head this weekend. The Pirates will be here and the Cubs will be in Cincinnati. St. Louis stays at home, where they'll be hosting the Rockies, and the Brewers will travel to Atlanta. Let's hope the skies will have cleared enough for them to get all of their games in over there in Georgia. Enough with the rainouts already!


A couple of things I was following these past several days were "Home" and "Away" records. All a team realistically hopes for is a close to .500 winning percentage away and a 'take all you can get' attitude at home. And, of course, the team that has winning percentages both home and away will most often win their division. Either that, or they'll be very close to the top and perhaps earn a 'wild card' spot for the playoffs.

I noticed that, within our 'club', only the Braves and Astros have losing records at home. All of the others have winning home records, some of them even pretty sizable. Steven's Blue Jays, up until the last couple of days, were almost neck and neck with the Dodgers in winning home percentages - both over 70%. That's sizable. The Dodgers home record is now 20-7. An impressive figure!

The Jays home record is still a very respectable 19-9, but they've lost 7 out of their last ten games (the last two at home) and seem to be kind of in the doldrums. I thought sure they were going to pull their game out yesterday in the bottom of the 9th, but they needed another out.


Let's see, where's everyone in the American League East playing this weekend? The Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays will all be at home, playing host to the Rays, Rangers and Royals, respectively.


Good luck all! Try and make nice for the cameras, but remember, this is war ... take no prisoners!!