Weekly Preview (Joey Almars)

For the weekly preview of June 3^rd – June 9^th I wanted to look at a teams that have a good chance to take the division by this weeks end, I’ll start with The New York Yankees.

Sadly, New York’s DL just got a little smaller with one of their stars, Mark Texiera, making his return to the Yankees starting lineup. I have enjoyed this long run of him, Jeter, A-Rod, and Granderson all out for the Yankees, but they have held themselves to 2 games out of first in the division, and have a good schedule coming into this week. They start out with Cleveland who has been holding their own this season but has struggled in the East with a 6-14 record. After Cleveland comes to the Bronx for 3 games, New York goes to Seattle, who has made the Houston Astros not feel so bad about themself. They play four games in Seattle, which gives them a lot of optimism going into this week. The fact the Yankees have hung in there through injuries this season, the addition of Texeira back in the lineup will only help them make a push for the top of the division. Sad day.

In addition to a relatively soft Yankee Schedule we got a pretty tough schedule for the division leader, The Boston Red Sox. They start out with the division leader of the West, Texas, they play them for 3 games and play the Los Angeles Angels for 3 games (who have been struggling but have an explosive lineup either way). It helped that Boston did well against the Yankees over the weekend, but with the opposite kinds of schedules, this could be the week that we see a new leader in the East.

Looking to the National League, we have Cincinnati facing off against St. Louis in a 3 game series. They are close in their division with Cinci only 2.5 games back and could creep closer to claiming the top of the Central. They start out with Colorado who has been playing decent this year, but if they can win that series and get momentum going into the division rivalry series they have a chance to change up the standings. Brandon Phillips (Dat Dude) is out with a bruised forearm for 3-4 days, but in his words from 2010, “I’d play against these guys on one leg. We have to beat these guys. All they do is b**** and moan about everything, all of them.” His feelings haven’t changed much and I believe that we will for sure see him at the start of this series no matter what. This is a strong division and these are the games that these teams need to win. So this will be a good closer to another week of baseball.