Do you remember back to the start of the baseball season? Well every team has played close to about 55 games now and things seem to look a little differently than how they started off.
Remember in the NL West where the Arizona Diamondbacks got off to a hot start and a of people who won’t admit it now thought they would run away with the division. Arizona not only came back to the division they fell out of 1st place. Currently the Colorado Rockies hold the top spot in the NL West. The Rockies have a 1 1/2 game lead over the Diamondbacks. A lot of people where very quick to write off the Los Angeles Dodgers and while they aren’t back to .500 yet they are jus 4 1/2 games behind the Rockies and they get Clayton Kershaw back tomorrow. Even the San Francisco Giants with all of their pitching injuries are just 5 games out of 1st place. Madison Bumgarner just made his first rehab start; so he’s not too far away from being back in the Giants starting rotation.
The NL East got off to a different start than a lot of people expected as the Atlanta Braves and the Philadelphia Phillies got off to very good starts. The New York Mets where even playing well for a little while, but which team was struggling? That’s right it was the Washington Nationals and again everyone who won’t admit it now thought he Nationals would just fade away. Guess what, they didn’t. While Atlanta and Philadelphia have both continued to play well the Nationals have some how found a way to get themselves into 2nd place just a 1/2 game behind the Braves with the Phillies in 3rd place 1 game behind Atlanta.
Even the NL Central had an interesting start as the Pittsburgh Pirates got out to an early division lead and people where starting to buy stock in them as a contender. Again you know that those people won’t admit that they ever said anything like that, but they did. The pirates are still over .500 at 28-26, but that’s only good enough for 4th place in the NL Central. The Milwaukee Brewers have been one of if not the hottest team n baseball and currently have the best record in the National League at 35-21. Milwaukee leads the NL Central with the Chicago Cubs 3 1/2 games behind in 2nd place and the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games back in 3rd place. The Pirates by the way are 6 games out of 1st place.
Teams running away with their divisions seemed to be the early theme in the National League, but maybe we should let players and teams settle in before we start handing out playoff spots. I completely understand that a lot of the people who where selling these teams do it for a living and they need things to write about and talk about, but they also have to have some kind of common sense when they do that. Even at the point where we are now in the season it’s too early to start deciding who’s going to meet in the World Series.
Carlos Gomez has always been one of the more entertaining players to watch in baseball, Gomez is now with the Tama Bay Rays and he did something yesterday that I have never seen a player do before.
The Rays where in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum last night to play the Oakland A’s. Gomez was starting in rightfield for Tampa Bay and when he went out to his position in the Bottom of the 1st inning he realized how bright the sun was. Now Gomez didn’t have any eye black on and he wasn’t wearing sunglasses; so instead of going back to the Tampa Bay dugout or have a bat boy bring hi out a pair of sunglasses he did the next best thing. Gomez borrowed a pair of sunglasses from a fan in the stands.
The fan was Matt Welch and he said about the situation. “He needed glasses for the sun which gets bad here around game time and I offered mine to him,” Welch said. “He asked another fan if he could use his, but they were normal sunglasses. Mine are more sporty; so I asked if he wanted to use them. He made two plays with them and gave them back along with the ball he caught for the last out.” Welch also mentioned that Gomez is now one of his favorite non-A’s players.
The Rays did end up winning the game 4-3. Gomez went 0 for 3 with a walk in the game.
Brett Brown’s career record is 127-283, but last season Brown and his Philadelphia 76ers went 52-30 and not only made the playoffs, but won a playoff series. Brown was the 76ers head coach as they struggle to rebuild the franchise and he’s been rewarded for that. The 76ers announced that they’ve signed Brown to a 3-year extension. Brown had one year left on his deal with Philadelphia.
Brown has had an interesting trip to the 76ers head coaching job. Brown’s first head coaching job was in Australia’s NBL. Brown was named NBL Coach of the Year in his first season (1994) as his team the North Melbourne Giants won the league championship. Brown also won an NBL title in 2002 as head coach of the Sydney Kings.
In 2002 Brown joined the San Antonio Spurs as Director of Player Development. In 2007 Brown moved into a assistant coaching role under Greg Popovich. Brown won four NBA championships with the Spurs before the 76ers came calling before the 2013-14 season to take over their team.
Brown guided the 76ers through tough times and with this new three year extension he’ll have an opportunity to turn Philadelphia into an NBA title contender.
The NBA Finals start tomorrow night and for the fourth year in a row it will be the Golden State Warriors and he Cleveland Cavaliers in the finals.
To tell you the truth I have zero interest in this series and I think everyone expected these two teams to be here again.
With the at the playoffs have gone and unless there are some shenanigans Golden State should easily win this series especially if Kevin Love isn’t clear from concussion protocol to play. I’m taking Golden State to win this series in just 5 games.
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