Last Week In Baseball! - Pleasant Surprises

If you are like us, you grew up on Mel Allen and “This Week in Baseball.” Here at WCT, we have “Last Week in Baseball!” Please don't sue us Fox!

Ok, so we were pretty negative last week with the whole “guys who are having surprisingly sucky seasons” theme. Well, we're in a good mood today, so we are going to turn that around and examine pleasant surprises. We are going to look at guys who are exceeding expectations. Most of these guys are thought of as being good, but none of us really knew that these guys were this good:

Kevin Youkilis - Before this year, this guy with nothing more than a guy with a funny name who walked a lot and was more famous for appearing in "Moneyball" than for any on-field exploits. This year, he is hitting .350 with a .982 OPS.

Chad Gaudin - Where do the A's find these guys? Three years ago the Tampa Bay Devil Rays traded this guy away for next to nothing. Now Gaudin has won five starts in a row, and is third in the AL with a 2.41 ERA.

Magglio Ordonez - If the AL MVP award were handed out today, Magglio, and not Alex Rodriguez, would get our vote. A-Rod has more home runs (thanks to his other-worldly April), but Ordonez has more hits, runs, RBI, walks, fewer strike outs, a higher batting average, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, and (obviously) OBP.

Now, on to our LWIB notes!

- The fact that Roger Clemens had to miss his scheduled start today against the White Sox because of a “tired groin” is an ominous sign. But even more than that, it is the result of signing a 44 year-old pitcher in the middle of May, with no spring training, rushing him through his preparations, and expecting his body to be ready to go after three minor league starts.

- A few weeks back, we said that the Brewers might have a tough time in May, and felt that if they were still in first as May turned to June, then we would consider them “for real.” Well, they were pretty unspectacular in May (14-15), but the rest of the division was downright abhorrent (55-86 combined record, no team over .500). The division is the Brewers to lose as far as we are concerned, not so much because Milwaukee is that good, but more because the entire NL Central is a joke.

- When was the last time that ESPN televised a game during the week that did not involve a) the Yankees, b) the Red Sox, or c) the Mets?

Take a look at the ESPN schedule for the next few weeks:

Tonight: Yankees at White Sox

Wed June 6: Mets at Phillies

Mon June 11: White Sox at Phillies (disaster scenario: Yankees & Red Sox off day, Mets on west coast)

Mon June 18: Red Sox at Braves

Mon June 25: Cardinals at Mets

Fri June 29: Mets at Phillies

Mon July 2: Twins at Yankees

- Its really good that Lou Pinella is keeping his preseason promise of “taking it easy” this year.

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Its our blog dammit, so we are going to talk about our team every week - Something has got to be done about Jeremy Sowers. He just cannot get it done at this level right now. The schedule gets really soft now with the Royals, Reds, Mariners (make up game), and Marlins on the horizon.

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How ‘bout tha... er, I mean, I'll be goddamned! - Jeremy Bonderman beat the Indians on Sunday to improve to 5-0, earn a split of the four game series for the Tigers, and salvage a bit of dignity for Detroit sports fans.