If you talk to any Giants fan this year, they'll probably talk to you about Aaron Rowand's dismal slump, the equally underwhelming season by Bengie Molina, and the slight concern about franchise players Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval and their sub-par seasons.

You'll hear stories about the lack of opportunity for young guys like Nate Schierholtz and John Bowker and the clamoring for youngsters like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner.

And, as always, you'll hear plenty of criticism for San Francisco general manager Brian Sabean and manager Bruce Bochy.

Charlie Manuel shuffled the lineup again. That’s good, I like adding something new to the same old routine.

Just like me, Charlie must have a drawer he goes to when things go stale.

Hypothetically speaking.

I imagine the Phils are scraping the barrel on superstitions by now. At this point they’re probably wearing children’s panties, playing hopscotch on the way through the clubhouse, and buttering their Pop-Tarts from right to left.

BALTIMORE: It's finally happened. The Mets have won a road series for the first time in 2010. Albeit against the Orioles, the Mets have gotten that story out of the way, helped out by a bounce back from Hisanori Takahashi.

The Mets got off to a fast start against lefty Brian Matusz, as Jose Reyes hit a leadoff home run, his third of the season.

The Mets only had five hits in this game, but they had two big blows, the other being a Jeff Francoeur solo home run in the eighth.

Coming into the 2010 season, the Braves had two players who hoped to enter the Comeback Player of the Year race.

Tim Hudson missed the majority of the 2009 season after Tommy John surgery, and many wondered whether the Braves would resign him, as doing so would mean trading either Derek Lowe or Javier Vazquez.

In his late-season appearances, Hudson convinced the Braves that he was worth re-signing, and the team eventually traded away Vazquez (after failing to trade Lowe) in order to stay within the budget.

Andy Pettitte has had a remarkable MLB career.  He's won 12 or more games in 14 of his first 15 seasons, and is the only pitcher in major league history to have a record above .500 for all of his first 15 seasons.

Missing amongst those accomplishments is a Cy Young award.  This year may be Pettitte's best chance at that coveted pitching award yet—and seemingly, no one is talking about it.

The American League East had looked a bit strange for much of the beginning of the 2010 baseball season. The Tampa Bay Rays have been on top since the start. At many points, they've had a significant lead over the rest of the division. That has since changed.

The Toronto Blue Jays had been rolling early on and making everyone believe the division would be a four-team race. That has since changed.

The New York Yankees were right there with the Blue Jays and kept battling between second and third place.

I think a lot of us owe Javier Vazquez a big time apology. Especially me.

In April and early May, I basically had all but packed his bags and tried to ship him back to the National League.

I did a popular feature story on how Vazquez would easily fit in with the Mets. A lot of you agreed with the story and some disagreed with it.

Some who disagreed thought I needed to give Vazquez a chance to find his rhythm and I thought at the time, you all needed your head examined because at the time, Vazquez sucked.

Now, it's a complete 180 degrees and I was wrong.

This article is available at The Daily Cub and The Chicago Perspective . 

Check out each site for more articles about the Chicago Cubs and Chicago sports in general.

The Chicago Cubs may have made one of the more lopsided trades in recent memory when they shipped troubled player Milton Bradley for supposedly over-paid under-performing Carlos Silva.

Well, he was under-performing.

Cal Ripken, Jr., is one of the most celebrated players in baseball history.  Practically the Patron Saint of the state of Maryland, Ripken was beloved by home fans and road fans alike.  

Towards the end of his career, fans would flock to the ballpark in droves in order to catch a glimpse of what was palpably a living legend.

Why?  Because he played the game the right way, he showed up for work every single day, and in the 1990s, as his skills began to erode, he kept playing long, hard games every day, and kept working to get better.

Lost in translation of the Cubs' 10-5 loss to the White Sox was that Alfonso Soriano slugged his 300th home run in the second inning to tie the game, shooting the Cubs' win probability up from 38.2 percent to 55.2 percent.