Sweet Maps, NL East?, NL West [Wednesday Morning Quarterback]

It’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

Ever wondered which baseball team you should be rooting for, based on geographic location in the US? Wonder no more.

I do believe you have now found an acceptable excuse for not rooting for a baseball team if you live in Utah.

Injuries, Home Losses, and the Fish Are Back!

The NL East has had what some may call a troubled month.

The NY Mets are basically fielding a AAA team due to all the injuries their players have suffered on the field. It’s a wonder that the team is even in contention at this point, but it seems like it’s starting to catch up to them. The recent losses in interleague didn’t matter too much, since the Marlins and Phillies also lost a few, but they’re now three games back. It’s kind of crazy to think about how close they are, considering that they’re a sub 0.500 team. Who in their right mind would have believed that the Giants, Rockies, and Reds would have better records than the Mets so close to the All-Star break?

Meanwhile, the Phillies have a bit of a problem. They almost never win at home. Their 13-22 record in Citizens Bank Park (that’s a 0.371 win rate, if you’re curious) just looks ridiculous compared to their away record of 26-12 (0.684). For those of you keeping score at home, the only team with a worse home record: the Washington Nationals (13-25 0.342). Pathetic. It’s a wonder they’re in first place.

Which brings me to my next point: the Marlins are only 1.5 games out of first! We’re coming back! This is mostly due to Josh Johnson’s fantastic pitching combined with Ricky Nolasco’s recovery from his minor league stint and some fantastic performances put up by rookie Sean West. Our young rookie didn’t do quite as well last night, but the Marlins were still able to put together a win. If they keep at it, it’s possible the Fish could even be in first by the all-star break.

West Wins?

A lot of strange things have been happening out in the west of late. While LA remains six games ahead of the Giants and wants for a challenge, the Giants have miraculously emerged as a powerhouse, leading the wild card race with the Colorado Rockies (I know!) 1.5 games back. There’s got to be something wrong with this picture…

My best guess: the NL East is really hurting right now, the NL Central is weak and beating up on each other, and the NL West is bizarrely having a great year. This could throw my pre-season predictions completely off balance!

The rest of the news

Manny Ramirez will be starting back up with the Dodgers next week as he completes his fifty game suspension. There was a lot of talk about his playing for the minor leagues when suspended, but I think it’s alright. I mean, if the rules were in place to forbid it, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. MLB wants it this way, so why does everyone care?

Another letter of mine was featured on an ESPN podcast. If you listen to the 24 June Play Ball! episode you’ll get to hear a letter written by me criticizing the press’ (specifically Christine Brennan’s) perception of bloggers. I want to note that I fully support Brennan’s work as a journalist and I think she’s a fine example for women everywhere, I just took umbrage with her claims that the enthusiast press, for lack of a better term, was useless, uninformed, and unethical. We don’t have the training or the access, but I think we do an important job. I’m pretty sure my brothers would know nothing about baseball if it wasn’t for this weekly post I did, so it can’t be all that bad.

The All-Star game approacheth! The game will be played on 14 July, approximately two weeks from now. My plan is to live-blog it (for real this time) on Tuesday night. As a result, there won’t be a true WMQ post that Wednesday (15 July) unless I want to sum up the game. I can’t wait for the game. I hope the NL can finally knock the AL down from its lofty perch.

Comments

4 responses to “Sweet Maps, NL East?, NL West [Wednesday Morning Quarterback]”

  1. Eric Mesa Avatar

    1) Looking at that map, I didn’t realize the teams were so concentrated in the east. I thought every state had at least one

    2) When I clicked on the post I was thinking, “Time to get my weekly dose of baseball info” and then I saw it in the penultimate paragraph. Nice.

    3) Great use of “I Know!” Mike Birbig* would be proud

    1. Dan Avatar

      30 teams for 50 states and many states have more than one (CA has 5!). There’s a serious concern about East Coast bias in the media, but you’ve gotta realize that there’s a serious skewing of east coast population, so that’s why there are so many teams out east compared to the west.

      1. Eric Mesa Avatar

        I agree there should be more teams in the East if there are so many people there, but do we really need two teams for one market – eg Mets and Yankees? What about upstate NY?

        1. Dan Avatar

          Apparently there’s enough cash to go around in NYC that both teams are at least among the biggest spenders in their respective leagues and the biggest earners. You could put a team in upstate NY, but who would go? It’s too spread out and there aren’t enough people. Heck, putting a team in a major city doesn’t even guarantee great attendance; just look at the Marlins and the Rays.

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