The Blue Workhorse

In this “B-Ray-ves Report,” we discuss the Rays’ wild and wacky victory over Cleveland that included pitcher Andy Sonnanstine batting third, Carl Crawford with a catch off the wall that wasn’t really a catch, and a benches clearing roar caused by Eric Wedge putting in his closer just to try to hit B.J. Upton while the Braves were rained out:
Current Series:
Atlanta -

Friday: Braves 4, Diamondbacks 3 (WP - Gonzalez, LP - Pena)
Saturday: Diamondbacks 12, Braves 0 (WP - Scherzer, LP - Kawakami)
Sunday: vs. Diamondbacks - 1:30 EST (Jon Garland - Derek Lowe) rain out

On Deck: Four game series vs. Colorado Rockies beginning Monday
Tampa Bay -

Thursday: Indians 11, Rays 7 (WP - Carmona, LP - Shields)
Friday: Rays 8, Indians 7 (WP - Wheeler, LP - Vizcaino)
Saturday: Rays 4, Indians 2 (WP - Garza, LP - Pavano, SV - Nelson)
Sunday: Rays 8, Indians 7 (WP - Sonnanstine, LP - Huff, SV - Percival)

On Deck: Four game series vs. Oakland Athletics beginning Monday

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The Blue Workhorse 2009 Outlook:
After coming one game shy of the 2007 World Series, the Cleveland Indians came into the 2008 season hoping to get over the hump and reach the fall classic. Things definitely didn’t work out that way as the Indians coasted to an 81-81 finish, traded away ace C.C. Sabathia, and lost sluggers Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez for significant portions of the season due to injuries.

AND…more…including why the Hometown feels…The Cleveland Indians WILL win the World Series…

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):

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Let’s play a quick game of name those numbers. Who has produced these incredible statistics?

151.1 IP / 9 W / 2.28 ERA / 195 K / 1.13 WHIP

Jake Peavy? Johan Santana? Many of you might see the line and figure it must have been a line from Peavy, Santana, or one of the other top-flight starting pitchers 151 innings through the season.

However, these stats were the combined 2007 season statistics of Carlos Marmol and Jonathan Broxton, two of the most dominant middle relievers in the game.

In terms of fantasy baseball, middle relievers are often forgotten when they can be a huge weapon as an added bonus to your pitching staff. They can be the secret key to lower WHIP and ERA, and many of these guys also pile up the strikeouts:

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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.

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: