If pitching is needed to win, the Red Sox have it

A month into MLB’s season, many of the division races seem to be unfolding in an unpredictable manner; at least according to my predictions anyway.

Looking at the numbers, it’s just another sign that the old cliché’ “you need pitching to win” is actually true.

If it is indeed true, there are at least four teams I can confidently say right now, that will make the playoffs:

No. 4 -- Minnesota Twins. Alright, with Johan Santana, Ramon Ortiz and Carlos Silva currently heading the rotation, the Twins already have the three men they need to head their rotation in the playoffs. Santana, a former Cy Young winner, is currently 3-2 with a 3.6 ERA. Ortiz is having a stellar year so far, standing at 3-1 with a 2.57 ERA at the end of April. Silva is putting up decent numbers as well, posting a 2-1 record and a ERA off 3.10 in his first five starts. Adding to the quality of the Twin’s pitching staff, they have one of the top closers in the game in Joe Nathan. Expect the Twins to make a real push in the playoffs, assuming they get there. If only Francisco Lariano wasn’t out the entire 2007 season following his Tommy John surgery; even so, look for the Twins to be a legitimate contender in October.

No. 3 -- New York Mets. Tom Glavine may be 41, but he’s still putting up similar numbers that he did in the early ‘90’s. Through the first six starts of his 2007 campaign, Glavine is currently sporting a 2.80 ERA and a 3-1 record. Behind Glavine is John Maine, who will be a future ace, looking at his numbers with the Mets in the past year. Last season, Maine was called up from the minors and started 15 games, putting up a 6-5 record with an impressive 3.60 ERA. This season, Maine has started five games and owns a 4-0 record, carrying a league leading 1.35 ERA, second in MLB. As a third starter, the Mets hope Orlando Hernandez (aka El Duque) will be their guy; however, Hernandez was recently was put on the DL. Before his recent DL trip, Orlando Hernandez was 2-1 with a 2.53 ERA. However, it is possible that Oliver Perez may be able to handle the load if his name is called upon in the playoffs, as he is 2-2 with a respectable 3.86 ERA. Billy Wagner, the Mets closer, is currently 4/4 on save opportunities and has a stellar ERA of .82.

No. 2 -- Atlanta Braves. With a rotation headed by John Smoltz, 39, and Tim Hudson, 31, the Braves rotation will undoubtedly pose a legitimate threat in the playoffs due to their veteran experience alone. To make the situation better, the numbers that Smoltz and Hudson currently have through the first month of the season make a potential playoff run even more likely. Smoltz is 3-1 with a 3.96 ERA. While the ERA isn’t great, Smoltz has struggled in April before. More than likely, you can expect Smoltz to bring down his ERA as the rest of the season progresses. Hudson, who guaranteed to put up great numbers before the opener, has surpassed any expectations of his guarantee. Hudson not only is having a great season, he is having a career year. Through six starts, Hudson has a 3-0 record with a 1.40 ERA. However, there is a potential closing issue lurking for the Braves ahead. Bob Wickman is 6/7 on closing opportunities, but his ERA is 3.97, which could cause problems in the playoffs if he doesn’t straighten things out.

No. 1 -- Boston Red Sox. Being a Yankee fan, it pains me to say it, but the Sox are dealing right now. At the moment, four of their five starters are putting up more-than-reliable numbers. Curt Schilling is 3-1 with a 3.27 ERA, while the knuckleballer, Tim Wakefield, supports a 2.59 ERA. Wakefield’s record sits at 2-3 at the moment; however, it is to no fault of his own. To the delight of Red Sox Nation, it appears Josh Beckett has regained his composure again, carrying a 5-0 record (tied for the league lead) and a 2.54 ERA. One of the numbers that stands out at the moment is that Beckett has only given up one HR in April; last year he gave up six HR’s in April and 36 throughout the course of the season. Last and definitely not least (and I mean that; literally) is Daisuke Matsuzaka. The Sox paid out over $100 million to get him on the roster when it was all said and done. Currently, he is in the process of adjusting to AL hitters. Dice-K, a nickname he has earned through his career in Japan, has a 3-2 record and a 4.36 ERA. By the time October rolls around; expect Dice-K to have adapted to the game and the players around the league.

If the best overall rotation in baseball wasn’t enough, Jonathan Papelbon is their closer. Papelbon, perhaps the best closer in all of baseball today, has had a stellar season thus far, having not given up one run in all of April. For the record, he went 8/8 on save opportunities as well.

All right, with all of that said, those are my top four pitching teams in baseball right now. The Red Sox and Braves are my new World Series picks and I am now taking the Sox over the Braves in seven games.

I suppose this should be the time to remind any Red Sox fans that my predictions as of late – in any league or sport – have been quite lackluster. Not that I needed to tell you this, but you may want to take my predictions with a grain of salt.

Baseball opens season; helps answer questions that need to be addressed

Following the first week of Major League Baseball, it is clear the excitement of the game remains intact, despite the dark clouds overhead.

Throughout the entire offseason, most of the MLB talk consisted of the online pharmacy distributing HGH to various players – one of them allegedly Angels outfielder Gary Matthews Jr. – and the infamous “witch hunt” being run by George Mitchell.

The only baseball talk that seemed to be out there was the same as it always is: Yankees and Red Sox. The A-Rod and Jeter relationship and Dice-K’s mythological “gyroball” was all anyone heard about. Being a Yankee fan, the news relates to my interest; but for anyone else, I can imagine it becomes a bore.

So what I bring to you are some select-questions that I will take action myself to answer.

Exactly how bad the National’s will be this year? They’re going to be bad. In fact, I said they would be worse than the 1962 Mets that went 40-120. The prediction looks pretty good at the moment, as they went 1-6 in the first week of the season

Are the Toronto Blue Jays a better team than either the Yankees or Red Sox? The truth is, they may be better than both. Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi looks to have built his strongest team to date. Without the off-the-field related incidents with Shea Hillenbrand distracting the team or manager John Gibbons any longer, the Jays can set their focus primarily on the game of baseball. With veteran players like Vernon Wells, Reed Johnson, B.J. Ryan and Roy Halladay having been on the team for at least the past two years, the talent and team chemistry is unquestionably there. The addition of Frank Thomas in the offseason looks to have already made a significant impact and could prove to be one of the bigger pick-ups of the season, giving them a potential playoff berth they have missed since 1993.

Will Minnesota Twins, Oakland A’s, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals or L.A. Dodgers repeat as division champions? No. In my opinion, I don’t think any of these teams repeat their performances as division champs. The only team I have coming out on top of their division that did so in 2006 is the Yankees. Yeah, call me a homer, I don’t care, but I made these picks before the season started and I plan to stick to them, no matter how much I may be proven wrong (in the first five games for the Yankees, not one starting pitcher lasted longer than 5 innings.) For the record, I am taking the Detroit Tigers, L.A. Angels, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers and the Padres winning their respective divisions.

Who will take the Wild Card spots? I had a tough time thinking this one out. Many people forget that the Tigers were a Wild Card team last year because they won 95 games, but they were. The Twins won the division with 96 W’s. In the preseason I picked Texas and the Phillies. If I were to pick now however, I think I would take the Jays and Mets. I explained how I feel about the Jays already, but the Mets look to have a solid team if their pitching can avoid injuries. Before I didn’t think they would avoid those injuries; but now after only the first week of the season, I am starting to question my initial thoughts. I think it’s because I picked up Tom Glavine, John Maine and Orlando Hernandez on my fantasy baseball team last week.

World Series picks? Yankees over Atlanta in six. I know, it’s a homer pick. If I were to take away my homerism, I would have to take Detroit over Atlanta in seven. This of course, is considering that any Detroit pitcher whom fields a ground ball refuses to throw it to any of the bases in an attempt to get a base runner out. Seriously, its better give the hitter a single than to have an E-1 and allow the runner to advance two extra bases on a terrible throw.

Who will win the most sausage races this year? Alright, so I couldn’t pass this one up. I’m taking the Brat.

Idol voting system flawed; Sanjaya needs to go

Is it possible to have all of us come together one week and vote Sanjaya off American Idol?

Whether you would like to or not, it doesn’t matter anyway. We can’t.

It’s ridiculous that I have to discuss this now, considering he should have been one of the first to exit from the top 24.

Instead, he’s now in the elite eight.

Everyone seems to be asking “How did it come to this?”

It’s an easy answer really: The voting system is flawed.

It’s the flawed voting system that enables teenage girls and various websites such as votefortheworst.com and dialidol.com to help succeed in a Sanjaya push.

Instead of getting America to team up and vote off the worst of the bunch, they put up phone lines to vote for your favorite. On top of that, you get an endless amount of votes. It’s all so they can say they received 30 million votes instead of 10 million.

Dialidol.com enables viewers to repeatedly dial in through the computer automatically to vote for their favorite singers. While technically the option is there to vote for any singer, over 25 percent of the votes through Dial Idol are for Sanjaya.

The media’s portrayal of him has probably helped him. It’s ironic, but it may be true. Think about it. The media portrays the kid to be an anti-Christ. While it has been documented that people are saying he has a “charming personality” and everything, the catch is, that’s deep into the article or column and the average reader skips over (yeah, I know, i-ron-yyyy!!). The headings and the quotes you hear and read, they’re all calling for his head.

If you’re not convinced, let me discuss my theory on this. There are only two types of people reading these Sanjaya articles: Sanjaya fans and the people who can’t stand him. From this group, we can narrow down Sanjaya “fans” as teenage girls and people who believe in a stupid site Howard Stern tells them about, votefortheworst.com. Do they care what the media thinks of Sanjaya? No.

Any other Idol fan that reads a respective column or article on Sanjaya isn’t reading anything new. We already know how horrendously tone-deaf he is.

The truth is, Sanjaya’s existence in the elite eight is really inexplicable.

Even if you take those 10 to 14-year-old girls that vote for him, add in the Idol “rebels” and throw in those who are sympathetic towards him, it shouldn’t be enough to push him this far. Seriously, the kid is part of a running joke across America and is taking it in full stride. I have no idea how he’s doing it.

Maybe a selection of the world’s population was brainwashed into thinking that if Sanjaya gets voted off, the apocalypse will be upon us? I don’t know the answer, but I do know it needs to stop.

Come on people; if you are reading this and you vote for Sanjaya, stop.

Just stop.

Like one of my favorite writers, Bill Simmons, always says, “Come on, I don’t ask for much.”

It’s just in my case, coming from me, it’s true.

Jets, Giants targeting cornerbacks in upcoming draft

The Jets and Giants may be heading into the NFL draft targeting the same players.

After both teams found their second running back in the offseason, both the Jets and Giants may be targeting various cornerbacks projected in the first round.

Leon Hall, who comes out of Michigan and is the top prospect in the cornerback position is projected to go in the middle of the first, ahead of the Giants’ 20^th overall pick and the Jets’ 25^th overall selection.

Hall isn’t out of the question however, as either team can trade up. The cost will probably cost either team a potential second or third round pick, packaged with a later round pick anywhere between the 4^th-7^th round as well. For his career at Michigan, Hall put up 180 tackles and 12 interceptions. It should be noted that the Wolverines have produced many great defensive backs over the year, including Ty Law, Charles Woodson and Marlin Jackson. Scouts believe Hall will continue that legacy.

If the Giants keep their first round pick, they may end up with Darrelle Revis out of Pittsburgh. Revis opted out of his senior year to enter the NFL draft. Revis finished his three-year career with the Panthers with an accumulated total of 129 tackles and 8 interceptions. While the numbers may look pretty for a three-year stay, Revis drew some flags while playing coverage and according to scouts, he has issues on concentration and is also slow on recovery if a mistake is made.

Aaron Ross may end up a New York Jet when it’s time for the Jet’s to make their decision. Ross, who played with Vince Young in Texas, didn’t start until his senior year. Considering he played behind Michael Huff, Cedric Griffin, Nathan Vasher and fellow NFL prospects Michael Griffin and Tarell Brown. Ross won the Thorpe Award as college football's top defensive back last year, posting 80 tackles and six interceptions as a starter.

If the Giants and Jets come out of the first round with a cornerback, chances are it’ll be one of the aforementioned players. However, the Giants may target a WR, OL and approach a CB in a later round. The Jets could do the same, as they will also be scouting players at LB, OL and the DL positions.

Whether you’re a fan of the Giants, Jets or any other NFL team, one thing is for certain: the 2007 NFL Draft will be a must-watch.