MLB

Let's face it, despite the team's recent success, the New York Yankee outfield isn't looking too promising right now.

At the start of the season, the Yankee outfield was seeing great production out of both Curtis Granderson and Nick Swisher. Unfortunatley, both of these players have been cut down with injuries.

According to a recent update from NBC news, Granderson is able to jog and hit without pain, but, "still isn't running at top speed or changing directions, which will tax his injured groin more than light jogging in one direction."

Facing another series sweep in the Bronx, the Twins pulled off some magic usually reserved for the Yankees.

Jason Kubel’s two-out, eighth-inning grand slam off Mariano Rivera powered Minnesota to a 6-3 win over New York Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

With the win, Minnesota ended a 12-game losing streak in New York. The Twins had not won a game at Yankee Stadium since July 4, 2007.

The lineup and batting order that makes the most sense for the Giants—and why it makes sense—is of some interest as the club hits San Diego looking to move into first place in the National League West.

1. Aaron Rowand, center field

Rowand's been more productive in the leadoff spot than he has anywhere in the lineup in his two-plus seasons in San Francisco. Don't mess with a good thing...unless he goes 0-for-4 and the Padres win 2-1 in the opener.

2. Freddy Sanchez, second base

Yogi Berra is synonymous with hilarious, sometimes head scratching, quotes, and he was among the most quotable athletes of all-time.

Today, we have colorful White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen to turn to if we want an entertaining tirade, or an inappropriate slur of some sort.

He may be rude, and certainly doesn't have a filter of any sort, but he always speaks his mind, and that has left us with quite an array of hilarious quotes.

When someone asks who is one of baseball's best closers, Mariano Rivera is among the first names on that list, and rightfully so. His career ERA is in the top 15 all time, and his ERA-plus is easily the greatest all time, not to mention his save numbers, and World Series rings as a member of the New York Yankees.

So what's left for this dominant relief pitcher to accomplish at 40? How about holding a 0.00 ERA as long as he did.

We are almost a quarter of the way through the Major League Baseball season. It's been one of the strangest beginnings to a season regarding teams that are in the race and not.

The Tampa Bay Rays currently have the best record in all of baseball, but there are some surprise teams out there—none more surprising than the San Diego Padres who entered the season with a lot of questions to their lineup.

So now it's time, as we enter the second part of the season, to analyze the top 10 teams in baseball.

Former Mets first baseman and current television analyst, Keith Hernandez has said a few times during the course of the season that a team is never as good as they look during a hot streak, and is never as bad as they seem to be during a cold streak.

Well, the Mets have seen both sides of the coin early in this young season, which leads me to believe that they'll end up, eventually, some place in the middle.

Right now, that middle seems to be the .500 mark, where the Mets are now hovering close to at 18-20, following a dismal four-game sweep at the hands of the Marlins down in Miami.

Alas, the days when teams had one relief pitcher who pitched multiple innings are gone. Specializing relief pitchers is part of the game now, as we rarely see a reliever go more than one inning unless special circumstances apply (rain delay, blowout, etc.). 

The whole point of specializing relief pitchers is to make them more efficient.

A lefty specialist can focus only on left-handed batters, and he usually comes in when another left-hander is up.

When asked what his team needed to do to turn it around after a fifth-straight loss to the Pirates, Chicago Cubs skipper Lou Piniella had this to say:

"If we start doing the things that we're capable of doing, I won't have to answer these questions all the time."

But the question remains, can this team turn it around in time to make any noise in the post-season picture?

The quest to find this answer began today with a 4-3 comeback win over the Bucs.

Everything is seemingly going wrong for the Mets these days. They're making fundamental errors, not pitching well, and not getting clutch hits. Now, though, it's getting pretty serious.

After already losing a starter due to ineffectiveness, they've lost another due to injury. Jon Niese, who already came back this season after a gruesome injury last season, hurt himself again in the middle of a disastrous third inning for the Mets.