MLB

It has been an amazing quarter season for the Tampa Bay Rays. Many wonder if they can keep this up. But when you dig into the reasons behind the Rays success, this has been a few years in the making. And it sure appears it can be sustained.

The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the most home grown teams in all of baseball. Nearly every single player is a result of the Rays drafting. Take a look at each player and see how this team has been comprised.

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Being the only man stuck on a lonely island can get pretty lonely. At least, I imagine it would be.

While most of us have never been marooned on a small island in the middle of the ocean with no help in sight, most of these pitchers (listed in no particular order) have come pretty darn close to that.

These are the pitchers with win-loss records of .500 or below.

Last week, Kieran Darcy of ESPN New York said the Mets plan to have Murphy play a variety of positions at Triple-A to make him more versatile. Daniel Murphy's rehabilitation assignment has ended in Port St. Lucie, and they optioned him to Triple-A Buffalo. Murphy was placed on the disable list during the final week of Spring Training, and spent almost two months rehabilitating the injury.

In the past, older women were shunned in Hollywood. The Cougar phenomenon has seemed to provide a new appreciation for older women. Demi Moore and Courteney Cox are just two examples of women in their forties who have gotten hitched to younger men. Most of the owners of Major League baseball teams are in the later stages of their lives. Despite their advanced age, the women they have chosen as their life partners still remain attractive. Others are married to younger, attractive women and some have beautiful daughters. These are the women of some of the owners of major league baseball.

Brett Cecil has been making the most of his second stint, in as many seasons, in the Blue Jays rotation. He goes into tonight's start against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim fresh off a solid outing on May 19th against the Seattle Mariners. In that start he went 6 1/3 innings allowing two runs, earned, on seven hits. He walked just one batter for the third time in his six starts and struckout four. There was little margin for error in that start either as the Jays would hold on to win, 3-2.

Like vultures surrounding a dead carcass, teams are flying overhead of the Chicago White Sox, hoping for some scraps to add to their contending team as the White Sox slowly waste away in the American League Central race.

The Texas Rangers have already shown interest in 33-year-old catch A.J. Pierzynski and the latest whispers say the Philadelphia Phillies, among others, are scouting reliever/setup man J.J. Putz and closer Bobby Jenks, with a focus on the latter.

After a disappointing 2-5 stretch against three of their biggest rivals, the Yankees finally got an off day before making their first trip to the new Target Field for another difficult series against the American League Central leading Twins.

New York had won 12 straight against Minnesota, including a three-game sweep in last year's AL Division Series, until Jason Kubel hit a grand slam off Mariano Rivera on May 16 to spark a 6-3 Twins victory.

After the first 44 games of the 2010 baseball season, the Tampa Bay Rays find themselves twenty games over .500 and six games ahead of the New York Yankees - who, oh by the way, have the third best record in baseball - in the AL East.

Strange things are afoot in Major League Baseball, and not just in Tampa Bay. Here is a look at the Top Ten Most Shocking Statistics in Baseball so far in the 2010 season.

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This season is Roy Halladay's first in the National League after spending his entire career to this point with the Toronto Blue Jays. Given his early start, Halladay may prove to one day be one of the greatest inter-league crossovers of all time. But this begs the question: who are the best players to have played in both the American and National League.

Of course, in a very literal sense, the greatest player to ever play in both leagues was Babe Ruth, who spent the last 28 games of his career with the Boston Braves.

Can someone tell me why Jerry Manuel put Ryota Igarashi (fresh off the DL) in for the ninth inning?

K-Rod is one of best closer's in the game, so why would Manuel put someone else in?

"He's quite a competitor," Mets manager Jerry Manuel would say later, a statement that somehow managed to contain both truth and irony at the same time.