AL East

Dear fans of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees,

Keep praying.

Pray that the Rays are not for real, but I'm here to tell you they are.

The Rays finished with 97 wins last year, and will many will be quick to say they will regress from that number, it's not likely to happen.  Not with their young stars in the making.

The Rays lineup this year:

C - Dioner Navarro.  A 25-year-old All-Star in 2008 is likely entering his prime.  Sorry Yankee fans, you're stuck worrying whether or not Posada can still play the position.

Tampa Bay finished 13th in the majors in runs scored with 774 last year.  They are looking to improve on those numbers with the additions of some hitters (Burrell and Joyce), the healing of some stars (Upton and Crawford), and the maturation of a stud (Longoria). 

I’m going to take a look at the Rays lineup to see what each player is looking to contribute to this year’s offense.

The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers by a score of 4-3.

Do you get the title though? Grading "Jobination." It's like, grading "domination" except I put Joba and domination together.

Joba has been dominant with strikeouts in spring training.

It's 79 degrees in Tampa. I'm jealous because I like the heat. It's 50 here in Morris Plains so it's not that bad.

This morning, Cashman released the next six players to be cut from big league camp.  Phil Hughes, along with Steven Jackson, Anthony Clagget, Humberto Sanchez, Jason Johnson and Sergio Mitre, got the boot.

While the majority of my fellow hardball junkies are busy overdosing on the latest, most obscure stat that quantifies the number of sunflower seeds consumed by Ross Gload per at-bat (adjusting for park factors), I’m staring at a map. 

With opening day just a few short weeks away, desperate fans are handing over their first-born sons to the New York Yankees in exchange for front-row seats for opening day at the new Yankee Stadium.

"I mean, this is an historic event!" explained Joe Broncetti, a die-hard Yankees fan from the Bronx who arrived at the park with his 8-year-old son Tom in tow. 

"I've got two other children left and, really, it's one less mouth to feed," he added, rustling the hair of the boy.

There is a Red Sox blog called Boston Dirt Dogs that is complaining that the World Baseball Classic is doing quite the number on their players, and thinks that Derek Jeter may have had something to do with Kevin Youkilis’s ankle injury.

They don’t say a whole lot, but they did have this nugget.

According to Brian Hoch of MLB.com, Phil Hughes was among six Yankees who were assigned to the minor league camp today. The others were Anthony Claggett, Steven Jackson, Humberto Sanchez, Sergio Mitre, and Jason Johnson.

YANKEES
Melky Cabrera CF
Johnny Damon LF
Mark Teixeira 1B
Hideki Matsui DH
Xavier Nady RF
Robinson Cano 2B
Cody Ransom 3B
Jose Molina C
Angel Berroa SS

Kevin Kernan of the Post discusses the bond being formed by two New York superstars over at the WBC, Derek Jeter and Mets' third baseman David Wright. Kernan writes about how Jeter has become something of a mentor to the younger Wright.

A-Rod must be loving all these stories about Jeter being so friendly with players from other teams. Just saying.