Two big series' this weekend, one between the Phillies and Dodgers and the other between the Rangers and Red Sox. The Rangers had a chance to prove themselves this weekend by playing a quality team and they were able to take the series 2-1 in Boston and looked good doing too. In their loss they scored only once but in their wins they scored five and six runs and the pitching was able to keep Boston to three and under.
The Dodgers though having the best record came into this series with a feeling of having run out of gas, and having been lucky to have been playing as well as they have without Manny. It is true they've scored almost no runs against starting pitching in the last hand full of games and have squeaked out some wins. So coming into this series with the Phillies they were sort of seen as underdogs even though they beat the Phils in the previous series and still had a better record. The first game made it seem like the pundits were right, the Phillies really were superior and the Dodgers second class. However the two games showed something different, suddenly it was the Dodgers who had no trouble controlling the action by figuring out how to win. Day 4 of the series saw young Dodgers pitcher Randy Wolf get blown out. We already know the Phillies are good but the question remains with the Dodgers: can they hit and score runs without any sort of power on a consistent basis? Manny will come back but what if his power was steroid related and he just slumps the rest of the year?
Other news the Blue Jays played well enough that people really started to believe that they were for real, and then they lost… what was it…. 9 games in a row. They got hot but they were never very talented, with the exception of Halladay of course. The Rays are struggling to keep their heads above water and some questions about their health might sink them before the All Star Break. The Mets who also have health issues are sitting 5 games above .500 which is amazing to me. I do expect the Phils to blow that lead out the water very soon. Okay that's it for now thanks for listening… J
