The Boston Red Sox finally got a win after losing five straight games. And just like that they are back to the top of their division as they are now tied with the Baltimore Orioles. The Red Sox won a great pitching battle one to nothing on a single in the bottom of the ninth by Kevin Youkilis. While the win was big for the Red Sox big in a bad way for the Toronton Blue Jays and their ace pitcher, Roy Halladay.

Halladay pitched his fourth straight complete game. That is great . But what isn’t so great is the fact that poor Halladay has one only one of those four games. That is unbelievable. Four complete games and only one win. That’s enough to make even the most mentally strong pitchers become weak in the head.

Halladay looked like a broken man after the game too. As the winning run crossed the plate for the Red Sox, Halladay screamed obscenities. How could he not? He has pitched his heart the last few weeks and yet he has gotten no run support from his teammates.

The Toronto Blue Jays have the pitching to certainly be one of the better teams in the American league. However, they don’t yet have the hitting and if they don’t get the hitting, they will most likely finish at or near the bottom of the AL East.

Meanwhile, don’t look now but the Los Angeles Dodgers have won four straight games and they are now back to playing .500 ball. They’ve also gotten within six games (five and half) of the D-Backs. I doubt the Dodgers will be able stick with the Diamondbacks but at least they are showing some sign of life right now. At least the D-Backs aren’t all alone at or above .500 in the National league West. And maybe, just maybe the Dodgers will be able to push the D-Backs just a little bit.

On Monday the Oakland A’s and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (or whatever… sigh) began an early season battle for early season supremacy in the American league East. From where I sit on the East Coast of the United States, this seems very interesting because everyone knows Anaheim has started out well this season but no one really hears much about Oakland. In fact, if someone didn’t take the time to look at the standings then they’d probably think the Angels were in control of the AL West.

However, if you look at the standing right now, you’ll see that it’s the A’s that stand atop the division. That’s because Oakland absolutely pummelled the Angels on Monday by a score of 14-2.

Not only did that win move the A’s into first place in the division but it also gave te A’s the best record in the American league. And the next best team in the league is the Angels.

And that’s yet another interesting point. It seems that ESPN and other sports outlets want to spend their time focusing on the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, and maybe the Chicago White Sox. But it’s the A’s and the Angels who are the class of the entire league so far.

So what has happened to the Red Sox? Weren’t they just owners of the best record in the American league?

Well, yes they were. But thanks to a current losing skid (five games), they’ve now fallen down to the middle of their division. And suddenly they are only 3 games over .500. They better watchout because they have the Toronto Blue Jays coming to Fenway and if they keep losing they’ll find themselves in the basement of the American league East when the Blue Jays leave Boston.

And the hits just keep on coming for Barcelona. This season has been pretty much a disaster for the Catalan giants, and president Juan Laporta will have to seriously consider creating a new team from scratch for the next season.
They go into this game with very little to play for. Knocked out of the Champions league semi final by Manchester United (even if they did put on a good show at Old Trafford), third in the domestic league without any possibility of winning the title (and worse, having to play Real Madrid next week at the Bernabeu stadium with Madrid almost certain to be league champions), without a win in the last five matches, and most alarmingly of all without scoring a goal in the last four games. For a team like Barcelona to fail to score in four consecutive games is practically unheard of, and I don’t know how many years you would have to go back to find a similar occurrence. Ronaldinho won’t play for Barca again, that much is certain, and it looks like French striker Thierry Henry will be sold off on the cheap, too. With four league games still to play Barca are four points behind second placed Villarreal, and it is looking more and more likely that they will have to play the preliminary elimination round of the Champions league too. Not a good prospect when Euro 08 is just around the corner.
As for Valencia, things have made a dramatic turnaround in a very short space of time. Ronald Koeman has at last been given the boot after that humiliating five goal to one defeat to Athletic Bilbao, and even winning the King’s cup couldn’t save his job. New coach Salvador González ‘Voro’, is well known in the club and now has a chance to make a name for himself. Last weekend was his first game in charge and he made some drastic changes, most notably playing Cañizares in goal from the start, bringing on Angulo in the second half, and having Albelda on the bench. All three players had previously (and mysteriously) been removed from the squad by Koeman in November for no apparent reason, and the Valencia crowd took the chance to give all three a standing ovation during the three nil win over Ossasuna.
I’m going for a Valencia win here. Barcelona are a broken team, lacking in spirit and just about everything else. Valencia meanwhile have made a complete turnaround after the appointment of the good coach and I can see them having a great time at the Nou Camp, where they haven’t lost since 2001.
Prediction: Away win (1-2)

It will be difficult to tell what Real Madrid fans would prefer going into this match. If Villarreal fail to beat Getafe, Real Madrid will be league champions, and if Madrid beat Osasuna they will also be proclaimed champions. But what I suspect the Meringue fans want is for Villarreal to win and Real Madrid to lose. That way, the next league game at home to Barcelona will be extra special, and winning the league at the hands of the bitter Catalan rivals almost too good to be real. But if Real Madrid are proclaimed champions this week, then Barcelona will have to suffer the humiliation of having to give Real Madrid the victory avenue in the Bernabeu stadium.
I think that Madrid will be crowned champions this week, as Osasuna lately have been slipping further and further into trouble, and are now just two points from the relegation drop. They have their last two league encounters, including last weekend’s bitter defeat away to a reborn Valencia, and will also have to do without Juanfran due to an accumulation of yellow cards, but being on loan from Real Madrid he wouldn’t have been able to play anyway. Luckily though, goalkeeper Ricardo will be able to play even though he was sent off after fifteen minutes of the Valencia game. The Spanish football committee reviewed video evidence and agreed with Osasuna’s directors that the Portuguese keeper hadn’t fouled David Villa. However, having to play with a man less for practically the whole game without the first choice goalkeeper as well as conceding a penalty didn’t do much for Osasuna’s hopes of surviving in La Liga.
For Real Madrid, their hope was to clench the title last weekend against Athletic Bilbao in the three nil home win. Unfortunately, Villarreal spoiled the party by beating Betis by a goal to nil. Barcelona though, are out of the running after losing two goals to nil to Deportivo de la Coruña. Argentinean striker Saviola made a rare start and responded by scoring the first goal, while Sneijder and Higuain rounded off a great home win.
I really think this will be a Real Madrid win, as they will want to start celebrating the league title as soon as possible, while Osasuna are pretty much dead in the water. The team from Navarro have had a pretty awful season, not being able to get into the top half of the table once, and have big problems in front of goal. Scoring thirty three times in thirty four games is very alarming for a team whose main characteristic is its attacking football.
Prediction: Away win (3-1)

It’s beginning to look more and more like the Arizona Diamondbacks are THE team to beat in Major league baseball. They have stormed to a six game lead in the National league West, and the best record in the Majors with a .720 winning percentage. If last year was about a young team trying to spread its wings a little bit in the playoffs, this year is about a young team trying to win it all.

And with Brandon Webb on the mound it looks as if the Diamondbacks can win any big game. Yesterday Brandon Webb outdueled Jake Peavy in a 2-1 win over the San Diego Padres. If Webb and the D-Backs can beat Peavey then they can pretty much beat anyone. Peavy is perhaps the best pitcher in baseball not named osh Beckett. So yesterday’s not only kept the D-Backs enjoying a six game lead in the AL West along with the best record in baseball, but it also shows that Arizona can beat any team with any pitcher on the mound.

There were actually many impressive pitching perfromances on Sunday. Both Webb and Peavy looked very good. Chien Ming Wang for the New York Yankees pitched a shutout. Wang is now 5-0 on the season. His ERA is 3.23 and he is beginning to look like a top 5 pitcher in the American league, if not all of baseball.

CC Sabathia pitched well for the Cleveland Indians. But he took the loss thanks to giving-up one run - a homerun off the bat of Melky Calbrera. That would usually be a great day but with Wang pitching opposite, it wasn’t even good enough for a win.

So while almost all of the races in baseball are very competitive, the Arizona Diamonbacks have all but emerged as the consensus pick for the best team in the all of baseball. Of course (as I always point out) there is a ton of time in the season to play but right now the D-Backs have stepped up in the lead and Webb and Wang have also emerged as top pitchers in baseball.

The American league East is turning into quite a crazy division. Just when it looked like the the Boston Red Sox had put it all together and were prepared to pull away from the pack, now it looks like things are wide-open once again.

If you look at the AL East, any one of the teams could win that division. Well, at least they can by the way things have looked so far this season.

The Boston Red Sox have now lost 4 straight games while the Tampa Bay Rays have won five straight games. Meanwhile the Baltimore Orioles have remained consistent and they now are at the top of the division. Then you have the New York Yankees, who certainly have the talent to win the division if eveything goes right, and the Toronto Blue Jays who have the pitching to stay in the race the whole year.

If the rest of the season plays out like the first few weeks then we are in for a wild ride in the AL East.

Of course the division that isn’t looking to be very wild at all is the National league West. That’s because the best team of this young season is in that division while all the other teams are mediocre at best. The Arizona Diamondbacks continue to own a six game lead in the division. It hasn’t grown any in the last couple of days, which is good news for the rest of the division. However, it hasn’t shrunk either and you have to believe that eventually it will grow bigger and bigger and may just reach double digits by the middle of May.