It seems that every baseball "expert" spent the last six months writing the obituary for the homerun (and, by extention, offense) in baseball. Offense is dead? My ass!

Between last night and the games played so far today, all of these players have hit homeruns: Hank Blalock, Pat Burrell, Jeff Conine, Adam Dunn, Jonny Gomes, Vladimir Guerrero, Carlos Guillen, JJ Hardy, Scott Hatteberg, Ryan Howard, Kenji Johjima, Andruw Jones, Ryan Langerhans, Adam LaRoche, Carlos Lee, Travis Lee, Mike Lowell, Luis Matos, Melvin Mora, Matt Murton, David Ortiz, Eduardo Perez, Albert Pujols (2), Scott Rolen, Chris Shelton (2), Miguel Tejada, Jim Thome, and David Wright. That, my friends, is 30 homeruns, and there's still lots of baseball to be played yet today (including Marlins-Astros, Giants-Padres, and Yankees-A's). Sh'yeah, offense is dead, my ass.

UPDATE: In addition to the thirty listed above, later home run hitters included: Khalil Greene, Hideki Matsui, Roberto Petagine, Mike Piazza, Alex Rodriguez, and Frank Thomas. That brings the home run total between yesterday and today to 36. In addition, the teams combined in seven of the fourteen games to score double-digit runs, and six teams (White Sox, Cubs, Cardinals, Braves, Dodgers, and Yankees) scored ten or more on their own.

UPDATE (4/4): Updating this one more time, Tony Batista, Benji Molina, Alex Rios, and Shannon Stewart all homered in Tuesday's season opener between Minnesota and Toronto, bringing the total for all fifteen season-opening games to 40 home runs. Yep, the long ball is dead.

As I sit here watching ESPN2 and waiting for the 2006 Major League Baseball season to start, I am quietly optimistic about the chances for the Minnesota Twins. Unlike recent seasons, the Twins aren't expected to do much this year by the standards of conventional "experts". The vogue pick to win the AL Central is the defending World Series champion Chicago White Sox, and those passing on the White Sox are generally picking the Cleveland Indians. The result is that the pressure is off the Twins, and because of that, I like their chances. A healthy Torii Hunter, a healthy Shannon Stewart, a healthy Joe Mauer, a Justin Morneau without the ridiculous expectations heaped upon him from last year, a vastly improved and confident Kyle Lohse, no more Joe Mays... there are so many reasons to be optimistic this year, and we haven't even talked about the team's offseason additions or my guys Juan Castro and Mike Redmond.

Indians and White Sox begin shortly....

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim pitcher Bartolo Colon was named earlier today the 2005 American League Cy Young winner. Whoop-dee-doo. Colon's one redeeming quality to even be worthy of the award was that he won 21 games this year. Of course, it's easy to win 21 games when your offense is giving you 6.02 runs per game. Johan Santana - by far the better pitcher - got only 4.7 runs per game out of his offense this year, yet still won 16 games. He also led the majors in strikeouts and WHIP and was second in the AL in ERA. My grandma could win 21 games with 6.02 runs per game in support, and I don't know that she could throw the ball all the way from the pitcher's mound to the plate. Unfortunately, voters apparently failed to take note of this little issue, so they voted Colon the winner, while Santana came in third. Mariano Rivera, a closer (a really good one, but still only a closer), came in second ahead of Santana. Cliff Lee, who got 6.48 runs per game in support (versus a less-than-stellar 3.79 ERA) came in fourth in voting, while World Champion White Sox pitchers Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland came in fifth and sixth, respectively, and Lee's teammate Kevin Millwood - the AL leader in ERA - came in seventh. Only Colon was named on all 28 ballots - 17 first place votes and 11 second place votes. Rivera was named on 22 ballots - 8 first place, 7 second place, and 7 third place, while Santana was named on 23 ballots - 3 first place, 8 second place, and 12 third place. There was a considerable drop-off in votes for the other four candidates. Oh well.

» Colon named AL Cy Young winner [mlb.com]

UPDATE: Obviously I'm not the only person who feels this way - if nothing else, three writers gave Santana first-place votes - but here's an equally well-reasoned for Santana to have won by ESPN's Jayson Stark....

» Santana, not Colon, deserved to win AL Cy Young [espn.com]

No matter the outcome of this weekend's final games of the regular season, for the first time since 2000, no American League team is going to win 100 games. If St. Louis fails to sweep Cincinnati, no National League team will 100 games either. Kansas City will be the only team in either league to lose 100+ games this season as well. The Cardinals currently hold a 10-game lead over Houston in the NL Central, which is the only division where the winner holds a double-digit lead (pending, again, the results of this weekend). Atlanta's total lead over last-place Florida in the NL East is only 10 games. And then there's pitiful NL West, where division champs San Diego have to take 2 of 3 this weekend from the Dodgers just to finish with a winning record. And, I know most people would disagree with me about this, but I think Brewers manager Ned Yost should win NL Manager of the Year. Why is that you say? The Brewers, at 80-79, are one win away from finishing .500, and two wins away from their first winning record since winning 92 games back in 1992. Pending the outcomes of this weekend's games (Milwaukee plays three at last-place Pittsburgh), the Brewers could potentially finish with the fifth-best record in the National League and the eleventh-best record in baseball. That doesn't sound like much, but considering the utter futility of the Brew Crew over the last dozen years, that's actually quite an accomplishment. And considering that in 2006 the Brewers could potentially have Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, J.J. Hardy, and Corey Hart for an entire season (that's quite a talented and young infield, where the oldest of them - Hart - would turn the ripe, old age of 24 shortly before the start of next season), along with a healthy pitching trio of Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano, and Doug Davis (and don't forget closer Derrick Turnbow), wow... look out for Milwaukee next year.

Kansas City looks to be well on their way to losing their 16th straight as they trail Seattle 8-1 in the seventh.

The Angels had a 3-1 lead entering the seventh, but have thus far allowed 2 runs by the Blue Jays, and the game is now knotted up at 3-3.

Most interestingly, Oakland has fallen apart against Baltimore in the seventh. In fact, it really started falling apart about the same time that one of Oakland's tv broadcasters announced that Chicago beat Minnesota 7-4 tonight. Barry Zito cruised through the first six innings before the wheels fell off. Chris Gomez led off the inning with a double. Melvin Mora popped out to third for the first out. Miguel Tejada singled, moving Gomez to third. Zito then hit Javy Lopez, which loaded the bases. Sammy Sosa singled on a dribbler which Zito tried to scoop up and toss to the catcher, but he fell over instead, Gomez scored, and all runners were safe. Zito then walked Alejandro Freire, which scored Tejada. A throwing error by Bobby Crosby allowed Jay Gibbons to reach, Lopez and Sosa to both score, and Freire to advance to third. With Baltimore now leading 4-2, Zito was lifted for Kiko Calero, who hit Luis Matos with his first pitch to reload the bases. Eric Byrnes then fouled out to catcher Jason Kendall for the second out. Chris Gomez, who led off the inning with the double, walked, which scored pinch-runner Brian Roberts. Finally, Melvin Mora, who was the first out of the inning, became the third out of the inning when he popped out to shortstop Crosby. Baltimore now leads 5-2.

UPDATE: Toronto now leads the Angels 4-3. Shea Hillenbrand hit a double to right, scoring Orlando Hudson from third. Frank Catalanotto must have just arrived on the planet from Neptune, because he tried scoring from first on Vladimir Guerrero, of course, threw him out at the plate to end the inning.

In Seattle, Ichiro hit a two-run homerun in the eighth, extending their lead over Kansas City to 10-1.

UPDATE: They've gone final in Seattle. The Royals added two more runs in the ninth, but still fell well short, as they lost their 16th game in a row. Mariners win 11-3.

Baltimore just added another run and lead 6-2 in Oakland. Toronto still leads Los Angeles 4-3 in the eighth in Anaheim.

UPDATE: Oakland showed a little life with two outs in the ninth against Orioles closer B.J. Ryan. Back-to-back singles put runners on first and third, but Mark Kotsay flied out to David Newhan in right to end the game. Baltimore wins 6-2 and Oakland has now lost 3 of 4.

In Anaheim, the Angels tied the game with a run in eighth. Now 4-4 with one out in the top of the ninth and K-Rod is in the game for Los Angeles.

UPDATE: The Angels escaped in the ninth. With one out, Rodriguez walked Orlando Hudson, gave up a single to Russ Adams, and walked Alex Rios, but Vernon Wells and Shea Hillenbrand both popped out to end the threat. Going to the bottom of the ninth, still tied 4-4. Erstad, Guerrero, and DaVanon due up.

UPDATE: The Angels finally won it in the bottom of the eleventh. Orlando Cabrera led off with a double and scored on a single by Darin Erstad. Final score: Los Angeles 5, Toronto 4.

With the win, the Angels move two games clear of Oakland atop the AL West standings. Oakland's loss allowed Minnesota and New York to each climb a game closer in the wild card standings. Minnesota is now tied with Toronto at 6 games back, idle Cleveland is 4 games back, and New York is now only 1.5 games back. With Boston's loss to Detroit, the Yankees are also now only 3.5 games back in the AL East. Good night all.

NEWS: The Associated Press is reporting that television analyst Mark Grace "used multiple expletives" during Arizona's 5-0 loss to Florida Tuesday night.

OUR VIEW: Did they just blame Gracie cursing on-air on a faulty button? Is he a robot? If Gracie is cursing on-air, the blame should go on nobody and nothing other than Grace himself. This probably isn't the kind of mistake that should get him fired, but FSN Arizona will (or should) probably fine him and give him a couple days off, because chances are the FCC will be handing them a fine.

Truthfully, I used to like Grace as a player for the Cubbies, but after watching a Diamondbacks-Twins broadcast earlier this year covered by Grace and his partner in the booth Thom Brennaman, Arizona might be better off canning him. He's an awful color man who provides no useful insight whatsoever and sounds stupid on the air. Swearing on air or not, get rid of him!

» D-Backs analyst Grace uses expletives in broadcast [espn.com]

Holy shit! Bottom of the eighth in the Bronx, White Sox lead 1-0, Womack on first, and Jeter sac bunts him over to second. As it happened, some guy fell out of the second deck behind home plate and landed on the safety net! The game paused for a few minutes as the dude sat dazed on the net, and then he finally decided to climb back up the netting. As he got back to the top, the security guards checked to make sure he was okay before hauling his drunk ass out. Lucky the guy was behind the plate so the netting was there!

Twins fans are in a tough spot this week. There are two critical series being played this week which effect Minnesota's postseason chances. The question is: Who do we want to win?

In one series, the Chicago White Sox are in the Bronx to take on the New York Yankees. Chicago leads Minnesota in the AL Central by 15-1/2 games, while New York is 4 games ahead of Minnesota for for the AL Wild Card. The Twins play 13 more games against Chicago, but are finished with the Yankees for the regular season.

In the other series, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are in Oakland for a three game set against the Athletics. Both teams are tied at 7-1/2 games ahead of Minnesota for the AL Wild Card. The Twins have six more games against Oakland, but are finished with the Angels for the regular season.

So, who do you cheer for? Yankees or White Sox? Athletics or Angels? Is it possible for them all to lose every game?

NEWS: Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers has had his 20-game suspension cut to the 13 games already served by independent arbitrator Shyam Das. Commish Selig is obviously disappointed, noting that "[i]t sends the wrong message to every one of our constituents: the fans, the media and our players."

OUR VIEW: Rogers is getting off easy on this one. He was already able to decide when he wanted to take the punishment, and now he's getting the punishment reduced? Why even have punishments and Collective Bargaining when they're reduced to such a joke? The only message being sent now it that it's okay for ballplayers to physically attack members of the media. If it had been a member of the media, he would have lost his job and likely never would have been able to get clearance or press credentials to work in his position again. Not only that, but Rogers would have put up one hell of a shit-fit. On the other hand, now Rogers is barely getting a slap on the wrist. Shameful.

» Rogers reinstated by arbitrator [mlb.com]

As promised, I have chosen to discontinue posting about baseball on my regular weblog, and will for now on post exclusively about baseball on my newest weblog Twins, Etc. As the title of the weblog should indicate, the primary focus of the weblog will be on the Minnesota Twins, but that's not all. This new weblog is devoted to baseball in general, and any baseball-related posts will be posted here - sometimes news, sometimes rumors, sometimes commentary.

It should be noted that I am an independent entity unassociated with Major League Baseball or any of its franchises. All opinions expressed herein are those of the author and should not be construed as representing the opinions of any other entities.

Now that the formalities are over, on with the baseball....