April has come and gone and the New York Yankees are now 9-14. If they were the Tampa Bay Devil Rays or Pittsburgh Pirates that record wouldn’t be a problem. In fact some fans might even be content with the mark. But they are neither of those teams, and their payroll is three times more than the payroll’s of those two teams combined. The bottom line? Their fans expect more, their manager expects more, and worst off - their owner expects way more. That’s bad news.

The good news - kind of - for the Yankees is that their pitching staff is continuing to get healthier. Ace starter Chien-Ming Wang has returned from an early-season stint on the disabled list last week, and has made two starts since being re-inserted into the top of the rotation. Andy Pettitte, who’s been used as a long-reliever to help mop up the messes of less reliable starters in the last couple of weeks, has now been inserted back into the rotation, this time presumably for the long-haul. And Mike Mussina, who’s missed the last couple of weeks because of a hamstring injury he suffered while pitching in Minnesota, is expected to make his third start of the season on Thursday night. Read the rest »

I want to congratulate Jermon Bushrod, a friend of mine and of my family’s, who was drafted this afternoon to the New Orleans Saints. Bushrod was born and raised in my home county - King George, Virginia - where he was a three-sport star and standout-student and citizen.

It’s not like I’m from Virgina Beach or Texas, or an area known for churning out productive sports stars. Rarely does an athlete from King George County go on to accomplish much. The last King George native to have any sort of success as a professional in a major sport was Al Bumbry. Bumbry played 13-years of Major League Baseball. Bushrod has a great chance to become the first member of the KG Foxes’ football team to make an NFL team this summer. Read the rest »

THE BASEBALL season might be the only thing longer than the line at the DMV.

It’s so lengthy that the best players have forgettable weeks, and even the less-talented major-leaguers have memorable ones. A player might sizzle one week and fizzle the next. That’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of following the game. Read the rest »

The Clean…

Derek Lee: Was 4-for-5 at the plate on Wednesday afternoon, pacing the Chicago Cubs’ offence in a 9-3 win over the Brew-Crew at Wrigley Field. He hit his first homer of the year in the game, and raised his season RBI total to 15. He’s now hitting .393, which is harder to believe than the fact that somebody somewhere has paid to see a Pauly Shore movie… 

Matt Holliday: Has been as good for the Rockies as Lee has been for the Cubs. He is hitting .393 with 14 RBI three weeks into the season, this after going 2-for-4 while driving in two in an 11-5 win over the Mets on Wednesday. He is a lot like Jennifer Anniston, in that I love him, and he’s extremely underrated. Read the rest »

Baltimore Orioles’ starter Jarret Wright made his first, and likely only, re-hab start on Tuesday evening. Wright pitched in the game as a member of the Frederick Keys in an A-ball game against the visiting Wilmington Blue Rocks.

Wright over-powered the single-A hitters he faced, as he should have, pitching into the fifth-inning before being removed. He worked 4.2 innings and struck out 6 batters, while yielding a run on three-hits and two-walks. His performance was exactly what Baltimore’s front-office was looking for, which means you can expect to see him back in the big-league rotation to make his third start of the season on Sunday afternoon. Read the rest »

AMERICAN LEAGUE pitchers scheduled to oppose the New York Yankees in the coming days should consider faking an illness. That’s the only way they’ll avoid being terrorized by Alex Rodriguez, who has been bullying AL pitching since the season started.

To say that Rodriguez is grooving at the plate would be doing him a monumental injustice. He’s had as prolific a 15-game stretch to start the season as any hitter has ever had, putting up numbers in two weeks that some all-stars would have trouble accumulating in half a season. And the scariest thing is that Rodriguez is only getting hotter. Read the rest »

Jeremy Guthrie was once expected to a super-star pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. Entering the 2005 season the Baseball America Prospect Handbook ranked him the team’s second-best prospect, ranked behind only Grady Sizemore among the team’s minor-league talents.

But in late January of this year, Guthrie became job-less, when the Indians waived the 2002 first-round draft choice. He was signed immediately by the Baltimore Orioles, who gave the one-time Stanford standout a chance to make their club in spring training. Guthrie did, and as a reliever for the team so far this season he had been quite reliable. He made three relief-appearances in early and mid April, working as the Orioles’ lone long-relief arm, and pitched to an impressive 3.38 era. Read the rest »

The Clean…

Felix Pie: Cubs prospect who was called up to patrol center field when Alfonso Soriano got hurt. Soriano is now back and will move to left, making room for Pie to stay in the majors. Read the rest »

Today on my Major League Basball show, Minors and Majors, I was joined by two red-hot prospects. College-pitcher Adam Mills and AAA First Baseman Micah Hoffpauir both took time out of their busy Saturday morning schedules to join me.

Mills was one of a dozen or so college players named to the “College Player of the Year Watch List” this past week. The watch list is a compilation of some of the nation’s finest players, who will all garner attention and ultimately votes as the “Player of the Year” in college baseball. The fourth-year starter at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte has been remarkable this season, pitching to an ERA less than one. Read the rest »

CALLING ALL backyard football players: If you can play cornerback or wide receiver, and don’t have any plans between July and February, you may want to give the Tennessee Titans or Cincinnati Bengals a call.

Each of the teams is looking for a player–the Titans for a cornerback and the Bengals for a wide receiver–because a standout performer from each club has been living life like a character from ESPN’s “Playmakers.” You remember that show, right? It was booted off the air after one season because it gave the league a bad name. Read the rest »