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The Philadelphia Phillies are 23-24, they've been outscored by 31 runs, Roy Halladay is on the disabled list, Ryan Howard hasn't hit and Cole Hamels can't win. So the Phillies eventually will be sellers at the trade deadline, right? I don't think ...

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly benched veteran right fielder Andre Ethier for this afternoon's game in Milwaukee and did so publicly, suggesting Ethier lacks toughness or grit or fight or hustle or some combination of those: "It's not just all, 'Let'...

The afternoon tilt between the Reds and Mets at Citi Field would have been just another mid-May game between a good team and a bad team, except the Mets are a good team when Matt Harvey pitches. Some thoughts on an interesting game, which the Reds wo...

OK, let's stir up some arguing and yelling again. Yesterday, I ranked the top five pitching duos. Today, let's do the majors' best hitting duos. Ranking the pitchers was difficult because there were so many excellent pairs to choose. Ranking the h...

Quick thoughts on Tuesday's excellent slate of major league action ... A's 1, Rangers 0. Yu Darvish just doesn't know how to win. This is a big victory for the A's as they take the first two of the three-game set. Yoenis Cespedes' home...

Some view this short, two-game series between the Indians and Tigers as an opportunity for the Indians to make a statement, now that they've passed the Tigers for first place in the AL Central. No matter that Cleveland took two of three just more tha...

From Tuesday's chat: Jacob (Poland): Was there ever a season in which four pitchers under 28 had 15 wins and sub-2.50 ERA? Excellent question, Jacob. My response in the chat was, "I would guess yes, certainly back in the '60s and early '70s" an...

This came up a couple times from readers in my chat session Tuesday, suggesting that the Cincinnati Reds may not be as strong as their 27-18 record because they've had an easy schedule so far, in particular compared to the Cardinals and Braves. In...

One reader called it "epic." I don't know about that, but it was a two-and-a-half hour marathon chat session Blog | May 21, 2013

Major league baseball is so deep in quality starting pitching that you could probably make the case for nine or 10 different combinations as the best pair going right now. Here are my top five: 1. Felix Hernandez and Hisashi Iwakuma, Mariners Thi...

Maybe Don Mattingly is a good manager. Maybe he's a bad manager. Maybe, like his mentor Joe Torre, he's just four jobs away from the job that will turn him into a Hall of Famer. (The headline in the New York Daily News when the Yankees hired Torre: "...

This is one of those stretches that makes you happy to be a baseball fan. Or a baseball fan in Cleveland, at least. If you're a baseball fan in Seattle you may be starting to look ahead to football season. The Indians just completed a four-game sw...

I don't know where this post is going, but wherever it leads, it's not meant to rip on Brandon Phillips, if it does wind up sounding negative. Reds fans jumped on me a few weeks ago when I called Phillips overrated, and that's fine: Fans should defen...

Well, Miguel Cabrera was due. I mean, he'd gone a whole four games without a home run. He'd driven in just two runs in his previous eight games. He was probably taking extra batting practice before Sunday's game. The bum. Cabrera was a one-man ...

A quick warning about Jurickson Profar's call to the majors to replace the disabled Ian Kinsler: Do not expect Mike Trout; do not expect Bryce Harper; do not expect Manny Machado. Yes, the performance of those three wunderkinds has, unfortunately,...

When the Tampa Bay Rays changed their name in 2008 and transformed overnight from the hapless laughingstock of the American League to 97-win division champions, their rotation featured five pitchers 26 or younger: At 26, James Shields was the old man...