Yankees are F'd in the A and other baseball musings.

Joba Chamberlain is seeing Dr. James Andrews today to get his shoulder evaluated. Yankees fans are collectively pooping all up in their pants. With Chien-Ming Wang probably out the rest of the year and Phil Hughes (who has only started 6 games this year anyway) still rehabbing in Triple-A, the New York Yankees desperately needed Joba to be an ace for the rest of the year. Who would have thought that on August 6th, the only two Yankee pitchers who have started more than 20 games are Pettite and Mussina? Yikes. Darrell Rasner has flaked out, Ian Kennedy is mayor of Bust City and Sidney Ponson is actually on the mound every fifth day. (The other four days, that dude is rockin' the buffett in an ongoing eating competition with Andruw Jones.) In his games as a starter, Chamberlain has a 2.23 ERA and 69 K's in 60.2 IP. He will definitely miss his next start, but anytime an athlete is down in Birmingham visiting the Doc, things probably aren't good. Of course, I haven't even mentioned Posada and Matsui being out for the year. The Yankees are 3-7 in their last ten and are 6.5 games back behind the Rays in the East and 3.5 games back in the Wild Card race. If Chamberlain has to shut it down, the Yankees can start booking vacations for October.

Could the White Sox and the Twins both make the playoffs? After taking the above paragraph into account and with Boston only having an 8-9 record since the All Star break, it's perfectly conceivable that both Central teams could sneak into postseason play. I know you should never count Boston out and they do play Toronto and Baltimore in six more series combined, but Big Papi's health continues to be a concern and Jacoby Ellsbury still hasn't snapped out of his slump. They will need him back permanently in the leadoff spot to get the lineup going. Ortiz's wrist is bothering him again and he's not seeing the same pitches since the Manny trade.

Chicago had a HUGE comeback win last night in the 14th inning against the Tigers. They are still scoring all their runs by hitting the ball out of the park but Carlos Quentin shows no signs of slowing down. (Please, please don't make me regret typing that.) Granted, the pitching still looks pretty haggard but if the starters can right the ship, the bullpen looks to be a bit more solid especially when Linebrink comes back. The Twins finally called up Francisco Liriano and get better by subtraction with Livan Hernandez hitting the bricks. Liriano looked fantastic in his win the other day against the Indians. They've had to deal with some injuries as well but to be playing this well without Johan Santana and Torii Hunter is pretty amazing. Plus they have one of the best closers in baseball.


If the Arizona Diamondbacks make the playoffs, it will be a mirror image of their great 2001 run. I could legitimately see Webb and Haren start just about every game. Webb won his 16th game last night which accounts for more than a quarter of the teams total wins. They also resigned Haren through 2012 which is monumental. He is making my Cy Young prediction look good so far going 4-0 since the break. Arizona's only tough spots on the rest of their schedule are St. Louis, Florida and the Dodgers. They'll be fed a steady diet of San Fran, San Diego (man I feel sorry for Adrian Gonzalez being stuck on that team) and Colorado with a bit of the Reds and Astros thrown in for flavor. Their offense still blows but I sure as hell woudn't want to face them in the first round or any round for that matter.



How much of an impact will David Price have? Tampa Bay is on the verge of calling him up but some are saying that he'll be in the bullpen. Huh? I know he's only 22 but he's 6-0 with a 2.08 ERA in eight starts in Double-A, with 48 strikeouts and 12 walks in 52 innings. And for a team that didn't make any moves at the trade deadline, Price could be just the thing to put the Rays over the edge and win the AL East. He can bump Edwin Jackson or Andy Sonnanstine out of the rotation and get some big league experience in preparation for next year. Oh you mean when Scott Kazmir, James Shields, Matt Garza and David Price will all be pitching on the same team for the whole season? Holy Crap! The Rays have the fourth best ERA in MLB right now. Oh yeah, he can throw almost 100 mph. Just like to mention that...





And finally, what year is it? Nope, you weren't seeing things if you looked at the box scores from last night. Mike Hampton actually pitched seven innings for the Atlanta Braves and won his first game since 2005. For a guy who only had one really dominant year (1999 22-4 record) he's certainly mad an ass ton of money. Here's his combined salary from 2006 and 2007 when he didn't pitch a single inning of major league ball: $29,950,370. How depressing is that? Almost as depressing as the fact that he'll make $20,000,000 in 2009. He's 35. John Smoltz and Tom Glavine are also still on the Braves. Tim Hudson is having season ending elbow surgery. Folks down in Atlanta better hope Jair Jurrjens and Jorge Campillo stick around for a while.

All divisions except the AL West are still up for grabs and the Wild Card in both leagues are going to come down to the final week of the season. Good times. Makes me wish I had spent the scrilla for the MLB Extra Innings package on cable...