MLB

Who would have thought that the most indispensable part of the Phillies infield would turn out to be Juan Castro. 

When Jimmy Rollins tweaked his calf muscle in mid-April he was batting .391, with a .516 OBP, and a wOBA of .527. Impressive numbers, ones that he certainly would not have been able to keep up over the course of the season, but clearly he would be very hard to replace.

He was replaced by Juan Castro, who provided solid defense, in addition to at least moderately adequate offensive numbers, batting .258 with a .255 wOBA. 

As the Yankees broke their first three game losing streak of the season, Phil Hughes just kept on rolling.

After being held scoreless earlier in the day, New York responded with their own shutout in an 8-0 triumph over Detroit Wednesday evening at Comerica Park. The teams split the day-night doubleheader with the Tigers winning the afternoon affair, 2-0.

With the win, New York ended a season-high three-game losing streak. Detroit’s two runs in the bottom of the sixth in the first game were the only two Tiger runs scored in the doubleheader.

I know it's early and a small sample size. But this shout out to Marlon Byrd goes beyond his early season statistics, which are pretty good by the way.

The man plays the game the right way. He seems to be a genuinely decent human being and a teammate who cares about winning.

In short, he is the opposite of the things many of us dislike about recent Cubs teams.

Sure, the fact that Byrd is hitting .341 with six homers and 24 RBI helps. But it's the way he goes about his business that impresses a cynical, long-time Cubs fan such as myself.

The New York Mets were defeated by the Washington Nationals at Citi Field on Wednesday afternoon by the score of 6-4, thus losing two of their last three and ending their six game home-stand at an even 3-3.

Sure, it was just one series loss. Heck, it was just one game.

But it was the continuation of a rather unsettling trend for the Mets—they have now lost all six of the rubber games they have played in 2010.

Championships are not won or lost in May, but if the Minnesota Twins plan on making a serious playoff run and contend for the World Series this year, the next seven games could tell us plenty.

The Twins embark on a three-city road trip with three games against the Yankees and two each at Toronto and Boston.

Talk about a turnaround.

Just six games ago, the Braves were shut-out by the No. 2 man on the all-time homers allowed list.

Now, they find themselves dumping a high-powered Brewers attack out of a dust pan and into the trash after outscoring the Brew Crew by an unbelievable (keep in mind we're talking about the team ranked next-to-last in runs in the NL coming into this series) 21-run margin over three games. 

Ever since the departure of Carlos Delgado and injury problems to Carlos Beltran, the Mets haven't been able to find the perfect lineup. In 2006, when the Mets won 97 games en route to the NLCS, they had the deepest lineup in the entire National League. It looked like this day-in and day-out:

1. Jose Reyes

2. Paul Lo Duca

3. Carlos Beltran

4. Carlos Delgado

5. David Wright

6. Cliff Floyd

7. Shawn Green

8. Jose Valentin

While there are Boston Red Sox fans who still appreciate David Ortiz for his greatness from 2003-2007, Red Sox Nation is beginning to get fed up with Ortiz's lack of production at the plate in recent years. Ortiz had a slow start last year, but he eventually got it going in the later half of the season and wound up with 28 HR and 99 RBI despite hitting a meager .238 throughout the year. 

Last year when the Baltimore Orioles had a 64-98 finish, there was another disappointing fact behind the season: the team had only one All-Star—Adam Jones.

Jones ended up on the All-Star team last year as a reserve after a strong 1st half.

The question this year is: who is going to represent Baltimore for this year's 2010 All-Star game in Los Angeles?

The only former All-Stars on this year's roster are Kevin Millwood (who joined the club via trade), Miguel Tejada (who decided to return to Baltimore via free agency), and last year's outfielder Adam Jones.