MLB

The talk in Boston prior to the Red Sox-Dodgers series was how to treat Manny Ramirez. Should he be booed?  Cheered?  In the end, there were mixed reactions.  But nonetheless, fans paid more on the secondary ticket market to see Manny and the Dodgers play the Sox at Fenway Park.  

We looked at the Dodgers ticket prices at Fenway this weekend and it is pretty interesting:

Only one half game separates the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays from the New York Yankees. The once red-hot Rays have finally cooled off after owning a six game lead over New York in late May. The division is up for grabs for the first time in two months.

In 2008 the Rays and Red Sox battled for the division all the way to the last week of the season.

With the Yankees alive and kicking this year, it should make for an even more exciting finish this season.

Which team can address its flaws? Who could they make a play at the deadline?

Ivan Rodriguez is once again looking to make history in Major League Baseball.

If he is given the opportunity by Nationals skipper Jim Riggleman, the man best known as "Pudge" will be setting another mark in his great career tonight.

Earlier in the year, everyone was writing stories about Derek Jeter and what it would take to resign the New York Yankees all-star shortstop after the season, when his 10-year contract finally comes to an end.

I’m not sure why there's been such an obsession over this. Everyone knows that Jeter is more likely to retire than to sign somewhere else.

The Yankees have the second-ranked offense in all of baseball this season, slightly behind the Boston Red Sox and way out in front of whomever is the third-place team on any given day. Still, with all of the injuries they’ve been experiencing, they’ve had a problem with getting consistent offense. Buster Olney of ESPN has reported that the Yankees have been on the lookout for a bat.

At SeatGeek , we use ticket data from transactions on the secondary market to make many inferences about the sporting world and fan sentiment. Today, we took a look at the change in prices of tickets for each team in the MLB from 2009 to 2010. The teams with the largest percentage increase from last year to this year were dubbed the “Surprise Teams” of 2010.

The Yankees have a very inconsistent bullpen this year. Take a look at some of the main culprits.

Joba Chamberlain: 5.52 ERA 

Chad Gaudin: 6.89 ERA

David Robertson: 5.48 ERA

Chan Ho Park: 6.86 ERA

It is obvious that the Yankees weakest spot on the team is the bullpen, and that has to improve if they plan on going anywhere this October.

The Yankees are in the desert this week taking on the last place Diamondbacks, but unlike the Orioles, this last place team has a bit of fire power in their lineup, and they pounced all over AJ Burnett as the Yankees lost <

  From Chad Jennings :

As I was taking in the hideous stylings of one Allan James Burnett last night at Chase Field, I thought it would be fun to gauge the A.J. Love on some sure-to-be completely rational New York Yankee message boards.

The struggling right-hander had allowed three homers and five runs through one inning against the last-place Diamondbacks. Burnett, I reasoned, would be a periphery topic at the very least.

It turns out that Yankees fans—even-keeled lot that they are—were not happy with their supposed No. 2 starter.