Surprises

On Monday morning, June 2, we find a couple major surprises. The Tampa Bay Rays AND Chicago Cubs are leading their divisions. The Cubs have the best record in MLB. Can these two teams be for real?

Tampa Bay 35 22 .614 ----
Boston 35 24 .593 1

Chicago 36 21 .632 ----
St. Louis 34 24 .586 2 1/2

Today we finish the 4-game series with Baltimore and to everybody's amazement, we have a good chance to sweep them. On Tuesday, we will begin an all-important series with the Rays back in Fenway. Justin Masterson (2-0 1.46) will be on the hill for the Red Sox opposing Matt Garza (4-1 3.78). Meanwhile, in Yankee Stadium, Joba Chamberlain will make his starting debut against Toronto. Expect around 50-60 pitches from him. He'll be up against "The Doc".

Matchups for the remainder of the Ray series: Thursday, Beckett (5-4 4.30) will pitch against Edwin Jackson (3-4 3.70); Friday, Jon Lester (3-3 3.67) going against Scott Shields (4-3 3.24). Hopefully, Big Papi will be back for the series as he is listed day-to-day with a sprained wrist. Bad timing for the injury; just when he was coming around. For some reason, we have defintely had problams hitting against Tampa Bay, but with some home-cooking, I think that we can look forward to better results than what we had when visited them and got swept.

We find the Yankees lurking in 4th place (behind Toronto) playing .500 ball and 6 1/2 games back. Never count them out. If the Joba Chamberlain "transition" doesn't work out, which all of us are hoping for, the Yankees would eventually hit the market for an ace someplace.