AL Central

Where do we draw the line?

How do we decide when people are being too easily offended or when someone is being too offensive?

With Major League Baseball's decision to replace Cleveland's July 4th hats last year (pictured above) with a star-spangled "C," it brings to light once more the whole issue with the Indians and their mascot.

Craig Breslow might have been the best move for the Minnesota Twins last season; Bill Smith gave up nothing for the lefty when he claimed him off waivers, and the Twins received 42 outings and a 1.92 ERA to help stabilize a tremendously inconsistent bullpen.

With the strong numbers, the Twins were comfortable enough to move forward without lefty Dennys Reyes, and the Twins allowed him to move on this past off-season. Breslow had put up solid numbers, and if everything would have gone according to plan, he would have been the lefty specialist in '09 and possibly beyond.

While most of Detroit's eyes were on the Red Wings-Blackhawks Western Conference Finals game, there was another significant event within a mile of Joe Louis Arena.

A moment many Tiger fans thought they would never see occurred Tuesday night when Dontrelle Willis picked up his first win in a Detroit uniform, shutting out the Texas Rangers through 6-1/3 innings in their 4-0 victory.

All Times CDT (eat it, East and West Coasters)

7:05 pm—Well, I'm going to try this out to see how it goes. Seeing as though my DVR makes me a demigod, I'll be able to rewind anything I miss while typing. This by no means will be an everyday thing. An undertaking of that enormity would be my undoing. The Royals have taken over my life enough as it stands.

7:09 pm—I've gotta say, Brian Bannister's goatee is getting more and more formidable. If that goatee were an actor from yore, it'd be Lee Marvin.

The Chicago White Sox are playing really bad baseball right now.

Their offense is as bad as it gets in the majors right now. As a team, they rank 26th in baseball in batting average (.246), on-base percentage (.315) and slugging (.391). They rank 27th in runs scored (136) and total hits (303). Through 37 games, they've been held to two or fewer runs 15 times. They have been shut out six times.

There is only one player on the entire roster, no matter the number of at bats, that is hitting over .300 (Paul Konerko, .316).

You do not win with a mixture of inexperience, awful starting pitching and extremely old baseball players.  It just does not work.  Lucky for the White Sox, they have the possibility of a bright future, but the present is going to be hard to put in the past.

In a move that surprised no one, Detroit Tigers' veteran relief pitcher Juan Rincon elected to become a free agent over accepting a demotion to Triple-A Toledo.

Detroit loses the right-handed reliever they spent $750,000 to get on January 20.

For the Tigers, he went 1-0 with a 5.23 ERA in 10.1 innings, but was replaced when Dontrelle Willis returned from an anxiety disorder a week ago.

The effectiveness of youngsters Joel Zumaya and Ryan Perry lessened Rincon's standing in Detroit's bullpen.