Ditto. Take a look at the records for both Central Divisions. Weakest of all. I'm a Cardinal/Royal MO boy and I was hoping against hope for either to win their division, but the east and west are gonna kill anybody from the central. I hope I'm wrong, I'm sick of the Braves and the Yankees and the Giants. World series? I default to the National league, 'cause they don't cheat by letting the pitcher sit out his batting assignment. Go NL!
I hear ya on the first two, but give the Giants a break. They have a new manager, and a substantially different team than last year, with a no-name pitching staff, and they've managed to put together an incredible season. Felipe deserves a lot of credit; Dusty Baker was a tough act to follow, and Felipe seems to have outdone him.
I am very interested in seeing the Cubs win/loss record for the second half compared to the first half. They had a slow start with a lot of injuries in the first half, losing their fine future superstar center fielder Corey Patterson for the season with a severe injury. They also had Sosa out for a long time early in the season. Early in the year, they also lost Hee Seop Choi, their starting first baseman who also has a very bright future. They released Mark Grace, who has a .317 lifetime batting average a couple of years ago to make room for Choi.
Their pitching staff has set Major league records for strikeouts, registering over 1300 strikeouts three years in a row to hold the top three all time places. They were even without Mark Prior for a few weeks earlier in the year. He is 10 and 1 or 11 and 1 for the month of September. Their hardest throwing pitcher, Kyle Farnsworth who consistantly throws in the mid to upper 90's frequently hitting 100 mph and above, couldn't break into their starting pitching lineup.
During July they were 21W & 14L for an .461 W/L avg.
For August they were 15W & 13L for a .535 W/L avg.
In September they were 19W & 7L for a .730 W/L avg.
The bottom line is that they are really hot and peaking right now with several strong and experienced replacement players arriving during the final third of the year. They are still a very young team in so far as pitching and a couple of their stars are concerned.
Just got back from the Royals/White Sox game. Don't even want to talk about tonights score. Ok, so I'm a sore loser ;-) but what a year the Royals gave us. Hoping for a better year next year.