Orioles clinch rematch with cheap arsenal jerseys
New York is helped by having their ducks in a row heading into the postseason. Had any sort of AL East one-game showdown or wild-card game taken place, they would have been forced to blow their big guns, starting pitchers C.C. Sabathia and Hiroki Kuroda before heading into an ALDS. Instead, that duo with Andy Pettitte makes for a pretty good core, while their bullpen is good, but without Mariano Rivera, won't be great. peyton manning jersey cheap Rafael Soriano had a superb season, but we are about to find out first hand just how valuable Rivera was, and don't think there won't be just a bit more sweat on Soriano's upper lip knowing the shoes he has to fill when it matters most.
Offensively, they are boom or bust. They can score in bunches, putting up the second most runs in the AL this season. However, they can also go missing for days, as they did in mid-September when the race for the division tightened up. Alex Rodriguez had a double on Wednesday night, his first since September 6. He's hit one home run since September 9. Mark Teixeira is back in the lineup after having calf issues, cheap car rentals in new jersey but he has underperformed this season. Ichiro has provided a boost, Derek Jeter has reversed his downward trend, and Cano has been superb. Curtis Granderson has 195 strikeouts, second only to Adam Dunn, but when he does make contact, it usually goes out of the park - he hit 43 homers, tied for second most in baseball. We won't know which Yankees offense shows up until game time of course, but for this aging crew, time is getting shorter.
The Tigers are another team that's lucky to be in the playoffs after a season that really never got going. Detroit won 89 games in a bad division, the AL Central, playing steady but not spectacular baseball since July. If not for the Chicago White Sox late-season slide they may have found themselves on the outside looking in. cheap youth baseball jerseys Now that they are in, they can't be ignored, certainly not with Miguel Cabrera, who secured the Triple Crown on Wednesday, Prince Fielder, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. The question is, after that crew, is the supporting cast powerful enough to propel them past a team that has worked up one heck of a head of steam in the A's? It will be difficult, as Oakland have been tested against the Rangers and Angels all year, while their stiffest divisional rival was Robin Ventura's team that defied expectations for most of the season. Then there's the other side of the coin: here's a team that was awarded the division in March played under immense pressure all season long, and now that they've made it, maybe they won't grip the bat as hard, ease up and finally play the way they were expected to all season long. There's a slice inside many of all of us that roots for anything in Detroit to succeed, and that includes their baseball team, but anything less than an ALCS appearance, after Detroit invested heavily this winter, will be thought of as another sad Motor City failure.
So there's no Stephen Strasburg, this we know already. That won't stop manager Davey Johnson from mercilessly attacking his opponents with what he has left, which is quite a lot actually. denver broncos jersey cheap The team does everything well - they are complete, and deserving winners of the franchise's first NL East title since the Expos won it back in the strike-shortened season of 1981. Six months ago the Nats were supposed to be taking that next step, instead, they have begun a new-era of winning baseball that could be very long and very fruitful. For evidence of that see Bryce Harper, who at 19 years of age was too young to celebrate with champagne when the team clinched the title.
The Nationals, who felt some heat down the stretch from Atlanta, but still finished with the best record in all of baseball, will play either St. Louis or Atlanta, but whoever it is, they will have a great shot of winning and moving on. The bats have pop, and they have the second most homers in the NL this season, improving overall in the second half with the help of Mike Morse and Danny Espinosa.
The pitching? Well, this is where the big advantage is, saints jersey cheap even without their ace. Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmerman are as good a one-two punch as any in baseball, but it thins out from there, and at some point, there is a decent chance that Strasburg will be missed. However, if Ross Detwiler and Edwin Jackson can snap out of the funk they are in, who will be able to handle Washington? If there is a looming, potentially dooming factor out there, it's Tyler Clippard or Drew Storen in a big spot, and they will be in big spots this October, without a doubt.
All arms, no sticks - that's the Atlanta Braves. They won 93 ballgames despite their inability to score runs with the best of the National League, and they can thank their pitching staff which was the second best in baseball in the second half, only to the Rays. A big part of that was Kris Medlen, who moved into the starting rotation on July 31 and really took this staff to another level after they had lost their best starter Brandon Beachy to season ending surgery. All Medlen has done is allow nine runs in 12 starts, which needless to say is completely insane. So is the bullpen, one that stars the devastating Craig Kimbrel.
Offensively, they are boom or bust. They can score in bunches, putting up the second most runs in the AL this season. However, they can also go missing for days, as they did in mid-September when the race for the division tightened up. Alex Rodriguez had a double on Wednesday night, his first since September 6. He's hit one home run since September 9. Mark Teixeira is back in the lineup after having calf issues, cheap car rentals in new jersey but he has underperformed this season. Ichiro has provided a boost, Derek Jeter has reversed his downward trend, and Cano has been superb. Curtis Granderson has 195 strikeouts, second only to Adam Dunn, but when he does make contact, it usually goes out of the park - he hit 43 homers, tied for second most in baseball. We won't know which Yankees offense shows up until game time of course, but for this aging crew, time is getting shorter.
The Tigers are another team that's lucky to be in the playoffs after a season that really never got going. Detroit won 89 games in a bad division, the AL Central, playing steady but not spectacular baseball since July. If not for the Chicago White Sox late-season slide they may have found themselves on the outside looking in. cheap youth baseball jerseys Now that they are in, they can't be ignored, certainly not with Miguel Cabrera, who secured the Triple Crown on Wednesday, Prince Fielder, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. The question is, after that crew, is the supporting cast powerful enough to propel them past a team that has worked up one heck of a head of steam in the A's? It will be difficult, as Oakland have been tested against the Rangers and Angels all year, while their stiffest divisional rival was Robin Ventura's team that defied expectations for most of the season. Then there's the other side of the coin: here's a team that was awarded the division in March played under immense pressure all season long, and now that they've made it, maybe they won't grip the bat as hard, ease up and finally play the way they were expected to all season long. There's a slice inside many of all of us that roots for anything in Detroit to succeed, and that includes their baseball team, but anything less than an ALCS appearance, after Detroit invested heavily this winter, will be thought of as another sad Motor City failure.
So there's no Stephen Strasburg, this we know already. That won't stop manager Davey Johnson from mercilessly attacking his opponents with what he has left, which is quite a lot actually. denver broncos jersey cheap The team does everything well - they are complete, and deserving winners of the franchise's first NL East title since the Expos won it back in the strike-shortened season of 1981. Six months ago the Nats were supposed to be taking that next step, instead, they have begun a new-era of winning baseball that could be very long and very fruitful. For evidence of that see Bryce Harper, who at 19 years of age was too young to celebrate with champagne when the team clinched the title.
The Nationals, who felt some heat down the stretch from Atlanta, but still finished with the best record in all of baseball, will play either St. Louis or Atlanta, but whoever it is, they will have a great shot of winning and moving on. The bats have pop, and they have the second most homers in the NL this season, improving overall in the second half with the help of Mike Morse and Danny Espinosa.
The pitching? Well, this is where the big advantage is, saints jersey cheap even without their ace. Gio Gonzalez and Jordan Zimmerman are as good a one-two punch as any in baseball, but it thins out from there, and at some point, there is a decent chance that Strasburg will be missed. However, if Ross Detwiler and Edwin Jackson can snap out of the funk they are in, who will be able to handle Washington? If there is a looming, potentially dooming factor out there, it's Tyler Clippard or Drew Storen in a big spot, and they will be in big spots this October, without a doubt.
All arms, no sticks - that's the Atlanta Braves. They won 93 ballgames despite their inability to score runs with the best of the National League, and they can thank their pitching staff which was the second best in baseball in the second half, only to the Rays. A big part of that was Kris Medlen, who moved into the starting rotation on July 31 and really took this staff to another level after they had lost their best starter Brandon Beachy to season ending surgery. All Medlen has done is allow nine runs in 12 starts, which needless to say is completely insane. So is the bullpen, one that stars the devastating Craig Kimbrel.
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