The Blue Workhorse

Earlier today, Major League Baseball announced the rosters for the 79th All-Star Game being held at Yankee Stadium, which is only appropriate since this is the final season for the historic ballpark.

The starters were determined solely by the fan vote once again, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, we wanted to do what we hadn’t seen anywhere else and break down the selections team-by-team, so that you could easily see who was selected from your favorite team (starters are in bold):

…more…

For the past two seasons, there have been concerns about a couple of the most known and dominant closers in the game. Last season, it was New York Yankees’ stopper Mariano Rivera after he got off to a rough start. This season the troubles are in the other league, on the other coast as Trevor Hoffman, the man who enters to “Hell’s Bells,” has left without the lead, or a save, already twice in the early stages this season.

After week one of the MLB season, there have been several teams, including the Padres, that have already run into bullpen issues, particularly on Opening Day, so we decided to examine each of the 30 major league teams bullpen performances thus far and see which teams should really be concerned with their bullpen.

In 2005, the Chicago White Sox walked away as World Series champions after sweeping the Houston Astros. The following season, the Detroit Tigers fell to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Then last year, the Cleveland Indians fell in the ALCS to the eventual champs, the Boston Red Sox.

This season, however, hope abounds for each of the division rivals in the American League Central. The Indians look to move past the championship series for the first time since 1995 and are hoping they can get a World Series title on the 60 year anniversary of their last title in 1948.

Detroit, who was the pre-season pick of several analysts to win the World Series, now will have to dig themselves out of an 0-6 start to their season if they want to make it back to the promised land of the October (now partly November) Classic. The White Sox just finished off a sweep of the Tigers and are hoping a rejuvenation to the heart of their lineup can return them to the 90 win plateau they have abandoned the past two seasons.

Opening Day is one of the most glorious days in sports, despite the fact that MLB tried to ruin it by having an opening series in Japan and then by having a one game series (yea, that’s not even possible Major League Baseball - a series means multiple) in Washington.

Now that all the teams and players have each put on the uniform for the first official games of the season, and to honor the first true day of the MLB schedule, we make initial observations on every team about what we saw on Opening Day after watching some games and examining boxscores: