Yet again someone has come down with the drug bug. This time, it's Manny Ramirez. Yes, Manny was suspended for 50 games for violating the MLB's drug policy. The drug Manny had used has not been disclosed, but Manny says that is was a drug, not steroids, that his doctor had given to him on prescription. Unfortunately, that was an illegal substance in the MLB. So, the commissioner took quick action and immediately suspended Manny. Now, the up and coming Dodgers are forced to play without their star outfielder for a while.
There have been a few surprises so far this season. All the first place teams in the AL are shockers. The Blue Jays are on fire and have taken control of the AL East. Of course, the Red Sox are finding their stride and are just two games back, so the Blue Jays have to be watching their back. In the AL Central, the ROYALS, yes the Royals, are in first place. It certainly helps that they have a Cy Young caliber season coming from Zach Greinke, who can't seem to give teams a chance to score runs. Lastly, in the AL West, the Angels sit in 3rd place and the Rangers is the team standing in front. They lose a big reason they were solid last year in Milton Bradley, but they continue to win plenty of games and are in a position to fly to the playoffs. In the NL, though, it is pretty much going by the book. So, it's still early and unpredictable, but we may be seeing the top teams forming, despite some of them being extremely surprising.
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It's now surfaced that Manny got caught with human chorionic gonadatropin, a hormone normally produced by fetus during pregnancy, but has been taken by steroid users to restart their normal internal testosterone production after they stopped using synthetic steroids. However, sources have said that Manny did test positive for illegal testosterone in an earlier test, but since it was harder to prove he had taken steroids, MLB decided to suspend him for hCG use because there was a clearer case there to charge him.
ReplyDeleteThe standings now a fifth of the way into the season are interesting. Like you said, the AL is crazy, you have Texas, Kansas City and Toronto leading their divisions this year. Last year, only the Jays had a winning record and the three teams were a combined 45.5 games out of first place when the 2008 ended. The star performer so far this yera has been Zach Greinke, he's been lights so far and really looks poised to keep it up through the season much like Cliff Lee did last year. The question is whether the rest of the team can rise to his level.
Of the three times, the Jays are most likely to fade quickly and get left behind, with Boston now tied with them for first and the Yanks and Rays looming, they don't have a chance. The team with the best shot though is Texas, their entire line-up is made of clean-up hitters and have the best team slugging percentage in the MLB. If their pitchers can step up a little, then they have a fair shot at the AL West now with the much-weakened Angels falling back with the rest of the pack.
The Phillies, though have surprised me with how bad their pitching has been. The best bullpen in the NL last year is looking mediocre especially Brad Lidge, who last night gave up a 3-run shot and now has an ERA over 8, mostly from HR's. The starting pitching has been probably the worse in all of baseball, it's so bad that a reliever, Clay Condrey, at 3-0 has as many victories as Brett Myers (2), Cole Hamels (1) and Chan Ho Park(0). Hoepfully they can right the ship, but not in bad position leading the NL East with the worse starting rotation in Baseball and worse team ERA in the NL