Rays in First Place

One month into the season and you can find the Tampa Bay Rays in first place atop the American League East. Scott Kazmir is coming off the DL, and starting Sunday. A few more wins this weekend over the BoSox can propel the Rays even further ahead in the standings. Similar to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rays have a young squad with a low payroll, and high excitement. And a team that wants and loves winning. What is wrong with wanting to win anymore anyway? You can't fist pump or get excited without offending someone. You can't even high five your teammates your own way (or fans in the stands) without aggravating the other team. That is part of the reason for doing it- you want to get in the head of the opposing team. Having team leaders that don't stand up for the players as much as their own politically correct cliches is disgusting.

The Mets' leaders seem to always say the politically correct cliches (David Wright and Willie Randolph). The channel gets changed the instant I see them talking (hint: you know exactly what they will say!). This translates to the entire team. The Mets have no balls, afraid to offend anyone, and will Piazza charge the mound already!

The now mediocre Los Metropolitans are on the decline and have been ever since their powerful '06 season. The 2006 season ended in disappointment with some questionable managing and roster moves. And it didn't help that Duaner Sanchez went for a late night latino snack in Florida, when the "8th inning guy" wasn't allowing any baserunners all season. Leaving Milledge off the NL championship roster for a disabled/wheelchair bound Cliff Floyd was one of those Kazmir-like mistakes that you knew the instant it was announced. From that point on, I have been losing excitement and trust in the Mets, in particular the general manager and the manager. Always coddling the veterans every need and over-disciplining the young talent at even the most minuscule mistake. Hopefully things will change, and i don't mean Delgado hits a homerun or we sign Jose Lima.

*Tonight's pitcher scouting report by Schwenny: Mets @ DBacks, 9:40pmET, John Maine(2-2, 3.58era, .000avg) vs. Micah Owings(4-0, 3.48era, .421avg):

-John Maine is a fastball pitcher. He relies heavily on the fastball up in the zone to miss bats and induce fly ball outs. In the past Maine has used tons of sliders to finish hitters. However, in his last couple starts, he's thrown maybe a handful of sliders, and instead has begun to use his changeup for an out pitch. He has even used the changeup to RH hitters, which he never did before. Maine's biggest problem is still his control, which causes him to throw tons of pitches, and therefore can't pitch past the 5th or 6th inning.

-Micah Owings is like that kid in Little League that would throw a 1-hit shutout against you, and hit two homeruns in the same game. Except Owings is still doing it in the Majors. His velocity won't overwhelm anyone, but he deals a heavy, naturally cutting fastball around 90mph that batters just can't seem to hit squarely. Owings will follow that up with a tight slider in the low-80s and a sinking changeup. At the plate, Owings makes the Mets wish they had a guy like him playing firstbase. He can hit, and hit for power. He has five career major league homeruns in just 79ABs, and in college at GTech and Tulane he combined to hit 33HRs in his NCAA career.