Not to ignore everything else that is happening in the world of baseball, but Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez are on the same team and you should be reading about it.
Part four of the quest to reunite the entirety of the 1997 Cleveland Indians on the 2009 Los Angeles Dodgers takes us places we never dared go, to a post-apocalyptic wasteland where humanity is depraved and the skies are filled with ash.
The inaugural season of Citi Field in New York, one filled with injuries and losses, has been one that the Mets and their fans would like to end as soon as possible, so everybody can forget about it and move on.
But along with the seemingly bad luck, the new stadium seems to possess special powers.
Not only can it suck all the power out of David Wright's bat, it also picks up the tendencies of the life that inhabits it: much like the Mets roster, Citi Field is already falling apart.
Much has been made of the way the new dimensions and fence heights at Citi Field suppress home runs this season, but the Metsdon't have any plans to make their park more homer-friendly. That's probably not good news to David Wright, who has expressed some frustration about the way the new park is configured, but there's no reason why it should be bad news for the Mets.
Just because Citi is averse to home runs doesn't mean that it is averse to offense. HitTrackerOnline told the New York Daily News that Wright missed out on eight homers he would have had at Shea, but all eight of those balls wound up as hits which, as you surely know, are also offensive statistics.
Photos courtesy of AP, MGM/Everett Collection, and Getty Images
At this point, nearly 24 hours after David Wright unveiled what our big-brained descendants will be wearing in the Buck Rogers-future, there isn't much to add to "Head! Move!". Wright, who took a fastball to the grill with a regulation batting helmet, traded that in for the Gatorade cooler turned upside down you see above.
Two weeks ago New York Mets third baseman David Wright took a fastball to the head and hasn't played since. It's a scene that was not only scary for Wright, but for anybody who saw him fall to the ground in a heap afterward. It's just one of those instances that nobody wants to see happen in a baseball game, but is bound to from time to time. Just ask Scott Rolen, Marco Scutaro and Edgar Gonzalez.
So it's no surprise that baseball is always trying to further protect its players, and their latest step in doing so involves a new helmet made by Rawlings called the S100. Every team in the majors has been sent a few for players to try out for the rest of the season, and starting in 2010 the helmet will be mandatory in the minor leagues.
It's now official. The New York Mets announced Tuesday that Johan Santana will need surgery on his left elbow and miss the rest of the season. According to the team's release, Santana saw medical director Dr. David Altchek and it's been decided he'll need arthroscopic surgery to clean out some bone chips in his left elbow.
Kansas City Royals pitcher Zach Greinke started the season and could virtually do no wrong. He won his first six starts and by the end of May he was 8-1 through 11 starts with a tiny 1.10 ERA. That's exactly when you should have traded him, at the highest point of his yearly value. I only say this with the benefit of hindsight. It's easy to look back and decide which moves should have been made.
Since the beginning of June, Greinke has made 14 starts and has a record of 3-7. His ERA has ballooned to 2.44. His earned run average is still great, he's top-five in the league, but he's losing half of his starts. How's that happening with such a great ERA?
"I think we're going to make some changes as far as what we're going to do in late innings," manager Lou Piniella said. "We'll have some word [Tuesday]."
The reason for the change? Incumbent closer Kevin Gregg blew his sixth save of the season Monday night in San Diego, turning a 1-0 lead with two outs in the ninth inning into a 4-1 loss.
Let's start with his 7.2 innings of work on the mound. Wolf gave up three earned runs and five hits. But he struck out an amazing ten batters while walking none. And this isn't the first good outing for Wolf in a while. In fact, quite the opposite.
If you take out the four earned run game on August 6th against Atlanta, you have to go all the way back to June 24th to find another day where Wolf didn't provide the Dodgers with a quality start. Nine of his last ten outings have been quality starts and he's sporting a 3.13 ERA over that time. He only has four wins to show for it, but that sounds like a run support issue and not a dig on Wolf.
NEW YORK (AP) -- David Wright sustained a concussion after being hit squarely in the helmet by a 94 mph fastball from Giants starter Matt Cain on Saturday, and the Mets third baseman was expected to spend the night in the hospital.
Wright was examined in the clubhouse before being taken by ambulance to the Hospital for Special Surgery. Mets spokesman Jay Horwitz said Wright had a CT scan, which was negative.
Not to ignore everything else that is happening in the world of baseball, but Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez are on the same team and you should be reading about it.
The inaugural season of Citi Field in New York, one filled with injuries and losses, has been one that the Mets and their fans would like to end as soon as possible, so everybody can forget about it and move on.
Much has been made of the way the new dimensions and fence heights at Citi Field suppress home runs this season, but the Mets don't have any plans to make their park more homer-friendly. That's probably not good news to David Wright, who has expressed some frustration about the way the new park is configured, but there's no reason why it should be bad news for the Mets. 
Two weeks ago New York Mets third baseman David Wright took a fastball to the head and hasn't played since. It's a scene that was not only scary for Wright, but for anybody who saw him fall to the ground in a heap afterward. It's just one of those instances that nobody wants to see happen in a baseball game, but is bound to from time to time. Just ask Scott Rolen, Marco Scutaro and Edgar Gonzalez.
Kansas City Royals pitcher Zach Greinke started the season and could virtually do no wrong. He won his first six starts and by the end of May he was 8-1 through 11 starts with a tiny 1.10 ERA. That's exactly when you should have traded him, at the highest point of his yearly value. I only say this with the benefit of hindsight. It's easy to look back and decide which moves should have been made.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.
Randy Wolf was good on Sunday. Really good.
NEW YORK (AP) -- David Wright sustained a concussion after being hit squarely in the helmet by a 94 mph fastball from Giants starter Matt Cain on Saturday, and the Mets third baseman was expected to spend the night in the hospital.
